Lineage V
by ruth baulding
Summary: AU!Jedi Apprentice. Book 5: An evil scientist wreaks havoc when she captures Jedi Knight Tahl Uvain for purposes of obscure research; Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan rush to the rescue, only to be embroiled in further trouble; and Master Dooku joins in the hunt with characteristic aplomb.
1. Chapter 1

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 1.**

* * *

The dental droid's appendages resembled nothing so much as an advanced model interrogation probe, the sort kept on hand by ill-mannered and unscrupulous people for the sake of extracting information from recalcitrant guests. Obi Wan closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. His dark sense of humor had a way of conspiring with his agile imagination in the most improper way, and at the most awkward times; and the Force-opacity of the mechanical specialist did nothing to quiet his nerves. One could only focus on the present moment to a certain degree, when all was said and done – particularly when the present moment contained a soulless automaton proposing to callously thrust any number of sharp implements into the most convenient bodily orifice. He squirmed a little in place, Jedi training or no.

"You're ridiculous, Kenobi," senior healer BenTo Li chuckled, pressing a gnarled hand against his victim's – _patient's_ – solar plexus and sending waves of soothing energy through the disturbed Force. "I've seen crechelings handle themselves better in the same situation. And here we have a full-blown Padawan just _looking_ for a means of escape."

"I am open to negotiation," the young Jedi offered.

"Not on your life, you magniloquent scamp," BenTo snorted in reply. "I know you too well. DS42, what is the jury's decision?"

The droid, of course, was confounded by the metaphor. "Your pardon?" it burbled politely.

"Our friend is mercifully free from the ravages of intelligence,' Obi Wan gravely whispered to the healer, who shushed him with a severe frown.

"The diagnosis," BenTo explained, with a long-suffering sigh.

DS42 was back in its depths again. "The last molars are severely impacted, quite common in humanoid adolescents. Since they are vestigial functionality only, and are causing significant discomfort at this time, I recommend extracting all four. This is typical procedure for his species at between fifteen and twenty standard years. I will be fully prepared in a moment."

"_Blast_ it," the Padawan grumbled. "Can't we just leave them be? The pain really isn't that bad. I only mentioned it because-"

"Yes, yes," Ben To interrupted. "Because you took a boot in the face during training this morning and were dragged kicking and screaming into the healers' ward by Master Drallig, whereupon the scan results for your thankfully _un_-broken jawbone revealed this little problem instead. I've been here the whole time, I don't require a debriefing. Carry on, DS."

"Will there be need of a chemical anesthetic, Master Lee?"

"No need – I'll stay right here. He needs his hand held the entire time anyway, I'm sure."

Obi Wan scowled at him as he spread thumb and forefinger of one hand along the young Jedi's face from temple to jaw, using the Force to selectively deaden the relevant nerve pathways. The droid hovered near, waiting for its signal, much as a carrion bird keeps vigil over some dying beast.

"I don't-"

"Hush boy, just shut your mouth and relax. Or," Ben To smirked, "I should have said, _open _it and relax."

"Rrrnnngh!" the Padawan peevishly retorted as DS42 got down to work.

* * *

"Remarkable progress, and within only months," Dooku drawled, "I must admit, his performance is most impressive. A natural talent, requiring only the proper nurturing to flourish."

Their boots crunched in the fine gravel of the outdoor meditation gardens' walkways, their journey laid out before them in strictly groomed parallels and perpendiculars, a disciplined geometry of intersecting pathways, as rigid and predestined as the Fate touted by the more dour-minded philosophers.

Jedi Master Yan Dooku correctly interpreted his companion's reticence as disapproval. "Surely, Qui Gon, you have no objection to your old master tutoring the boy in basic swordsmanship? Apprenticeship does not condemn a student to the unvarying routine of _one_ tyranny."

The tall man to his right smiled sourly. His experience and memory did not vouch for the older man's words; and yet, his own principles bade him agree. "Of course not," he replied, evenly, stopping to peer at a small botanical specimen planted discreetly to one side of the footpath. He stooped and prodded at one of the thing's tiny, waving tentacles, then moved on, a faint smile teasing at the corners of his eyes.

"Good heavens." Dooku lifted a disdainful brow. "A sarlaac bush. I _hope_ nobody has been fool enough to feed it proteins. They can be kept charmingly… stunted… if not indulged."

Qui Gon cast the silver-haired Jedi master a sidelong glance. "As can many vices, such as pride and combativeness."

Dooku placidly folded his hands behind his back and continued strolling down the neat path. "Ah. It is _Makashi_ as such that you object to. I should have known. But, my friend, there is nothing to be feared in one's Padawan surpassing his master in some particular arena. It _has_ happened before."

In another life, Qui Gon might have misinterpreted this remark, perhaps even mistakenly construing it as a subtle compliment. At just past fifty standard years, however, he was too wise to commit such a hermeneutical blunder; he did so much as break stride. "And I foresee that it may happen again. Perhaps Obi Wan will display precocious wisdom and voluntarily discontinue his pursuit of such dubious skills _before_ he is Knighted."

Dooku's thin lips quirked into a fleeting smile and his grey eyes hardened momentarily. "If he did, then he would indeed have surpassed even his master's folly," he softly replied, parrying the attack and disarming his companion in an adder's strike of speed. "Tsk. You are a mentor of prodigies; what advice can I possibly offer you?"

And he was gone, with a short bow and an elegant flick of his cloak over one shoulder. Why he favored the cowled cloak over the traditional robe, Qui Gon could never fathom. It swept haughtily over the raked path as he continued on his way, not looking back.

* * *

"I don't mean to sound greedy, but are you going to finish that?" Reeft inquired.

Obi Wan glanced from his barely touched plate up to his friend's wrinkled face. The other Padawan grinned back, his Dressalian features folding into yet more rumpled lines.

"I don't mean to sound rude, but haven't you had enough as it is?"

Mournfully, the other boy shook his head. "No."

Smiling _hurt,_ despite Ben To Li's admirable skills at muting the inevitable aftermath of the morning's training accident and his subsequent rough treatment at the dental droid's hands, so Obi Wan settled for shoving his dinner across the table and lifting his brows. "Far be it from me to stand between a friend and his besetting vice."

Reeft's grin only widened. "Especially when it permits you to indulge in your own: sanctimonious lecturing."

Obi Wan absently brushed the fingers against his 'saber hilt with one hand, while massaging his aching neck muscles with the other. He watched Reeft demolish his victuals, shoveling each mouthful in with evident relish, and a decided lack of ambassadorial-standard table manners.

"Dj'you solve that astro-navigation problem for Master Chopra yet?" he asked, chomping away.

His friend snorted. "The one about the differential hyper-lanes and the variable acceleration factor? I submitted my answer already."

Reeft almost choked on his envy.

Obi Wan waited until he had recovered. "After two hours of vain struggle to balance all the infernal equations, I wrote _abandon ship at Sullust and use mind trick to obtain berth on more reliable vessel._ Advanced mathematical calculation is for droids."

The Dressalian finished his meal and burped quietly into one hand, primarily because such displays annoyed his companion. "You will be hearing about that from Master Jinn," he warned.

Obi Wan leaned back in his chair, smugly, crossing his arms. "I don't think so… considering that we did _exactly_ that only last month, during a mission. Master was quite adamant in his refusal to engage the engineering problems posed by our first transport."

That had Reeft chuckling heartily. "Well," he regretfully sighed, standing. "_I_ at least must go apply myself to my education. I'll let you in on the _real _ answer tomorrow morning, since I owe you for dinner."

Obi Wan shook his head. "No. You know I won't cheat."

The Dressalian shrugged back into his dark robe. "Or accept the assistance of your intellectual superiors, ha!... Good night."

"Good night, Reeft." And since he had no need of visiting the Archives for another session of quiet mathematical contemplation, Obi Wan turned his steps toward his own quarters, with a vaguely rumbling stomach and a vaguely aching head, but a clear and distinct intention to sprawl across his thin sleep mattress and remain in that blessed position until the next morning.

* * *

Qui Gon Jinn, it would seem, had other ideas.

"You are back earlier than expected," the tall man remarked, as his Padawan waved open the door to their quarters and grumpily dragged himself over the threshold.

"Yes, master," the boy mumbled, rubbing at the base of his skull.

The Jedi master cocked an eyebrow. "No studies to complete?"

"I've done all I can," his apprentice responded, looking longingly in the direction of his small bedroom.

"I would like a word with you, before you retire," Qui Gon said, gently, noting the weary droop of his Padawans' shoulders. "Why don't you sit?"

Obi Wan sank onto one of the common room's meditation cushions while the older man silently prepared tea, a long-standing evening ritual. "Is…. Is something wrong, master?"

There was really no need for such a question; their shared Force bond supplied ample testament to Qui Gon's slightly disturbed state of mind. "I was hoping you could answer that question for me."

The young Jedi accepted the proffered bowl of tea with a nod of silent thanks. He turned inward for a moment, consulting the Force, an instinct blended of personal knowledge and impersonal, universal insight. "You spoke with Master Dooku today, and that conversation has left you with misgivings," he said, after a moment.

The tall man quirked a rueful smile. "You grow more perceptive every day. Yes."

"About… me?"

Qui Gon's broad hands held the delicate bowl gently, their size in no way excluding grace. "Never about you. But perhaps about the wisdom of devoting yourself to the mastery of Makashi. You have a chosen saber style already: Ataru. While a well-rounded foundation is desirable, I think this foray into Makashi poses a distraction from other more salutary skills, even in swordsmanship."

Obi Wan's face was carefully composed, as it would be at a negotiating table. He felt his way forward carefully, as though drafting a peace treaty. "You have reservations about Form II. It _is _ a traditionally recognized style, practiced by many great masters over the centuries."

"True." Qui Gon was gracious, but firm. "But it is a duelist's discipline. It is focused specifically upon the disabling and defeat of another saber-wielder. To what use, Obi Wan, do you foresee yourself putting this skill in your future as a peace-keeper?"

It was a fair question. "I don't know," the Padawan admitted, promptly.

His teacher studied him intently.

"But it seems right. As though I should study it anyhow. I can't _see_ anything about the future, not in that way. I simply have a… a feeling."

They were silent for a long interval. Qui Gon's bowl was drained; Obi Wan's tea grew tepid, cooling to a bittersweet resignation. "Of course I shall desist immediately, if you think it best, master."

The older man exhaled. "In which case, there is no need. I will tell you when I think there is one, unless you come to the same conclusion first."

His apprentice nodded solemnly, raising a hand once again to massage at his neck and jaw.

"I thought you saw the healers after this morning's accident – are you still in discomfort?"

The Padawan's eyebrows came together in a thunderous line. "Yes, thanks to Master Li's fanaticism. When he discovered there wasn't any need of a bone-knitter, he set about finding some other convenient pretense under which to justify torture." He tossed back the remainder of his tepid tea, with a curt precision.

Qui Gon rose and collected the empty bowls, eyebrows raised. "Hm. And did the, ah, merciless inquisitors get anything out of you, my poor abused Padawan?"

The young Jedi made a small disgusted sound and looked up at his mentors' mildly amused face with a wounded expression. "Yes. They removed my wisdom teeth - and _do not_ say it, master. I do not find it funny."

The tall man blinked innocently. "Did I say anything? I said nothing."

His apprentice glowered at him, hardly mollified.

"I am proud of your restraint," Qui Gon continued blithely. "Here you were cruelly violated and robbed, while your 'saber was within your reach, and yet you did not take off the droid's right arm. Perhaps you are not such an adept of Makashi as I feared."

Obi Wan's mouth thinned into a line dangerously close to a pout. "Next time I _shall,"_ he threatened.

"Go to bed," Qui Gon advised. "You've had a trying day for a youngling of your tender age." His grey eyes danced with mirth as he jerked his head in the direction of the smaller bedroom. "And the _tooth gnome _ will not come until you are sound asleep."

He managed not to chuckle until Obi Wan had made his retreat in dignified silence.

* * *

It was doomed to be a restless night.

_The droid loomed closer, its appendages bristling with unspeakably specialized tools, delicate instruments of suffering. It said nothing, but efficiently set to work as Ben To watched. Only the healer was not himself, but somebody different, cruel and smiling, coldly calculating as he… she… observed, making notes upon a datapad. Obi Wan reached for his saber, to lop off the evil thing's arm, but he had no saber; indeed, he could not move, paralysis seizing his limbs, a burning acid corroding his nerves from within, contorting the world into a blurred and melting nightmare, the droid's invasion of his person somehow penetrating deeper, from mouth into throat and sinuses, explosive pain erupting behind his eyeballs, making him scream…_

_"Why are you here?" the icy voice demanded, pitiless._

_He didn't remember, he didn't know, all he knew was pain… he scrabbled wildly for the Force, grasping at its twisting fragments, thrashing his way free of the invisible restraints that bound him in place._

He woke up, sweat-drenched, upon the floor of his own room in the Jedi Temple. His hand reached sideways, to clutch at the edge of his low sleep-mattress, and he rolled upright into meditation posture with tiny whimper. He had not suffered a nightmare of that intensity in almost a year. He had thought such unwelcome visitations of the unifying Force were behind him, tamed into mere premonition by training and the passage of time.

When his breathing and pulse had settled into their wonted rhythm, he stood and shakily waved open the door, pausing at the entrance to the adjacent fresher as a last wave of nausea passed through him, and then padded into the common area with no particular purpose other than remaining awake. He was brought up short by the silhouette of Qui Gon Jinn, faintly outlined by the dim nighttime light filtering through the balcony doors.

"Master?"

The tall Jedi stirred, raising one hand from his knees and waving him forward. Qui Gon knelt, eyes closed, his face smoothed into unnatural calm as he breathed slowly and deliberately. His Force presence was a bleeding knot of worry and grief.

"Master?' The Padawan slid down to the floor beside him, nearly as perturbed by this sight as he had been by his own vision. Something slithered uneasily in his belly again.

"She is in terrible pain, Obi Wan."

His diaphragm lurched as understanding claimed him. _Tahl._ "I… I felt it, too, master."

Qui Gon finally opened his eyes, and turned to regard his student. In the darkness, only the silver threads in his hair gleamed visibly. He was a shadow crowned in pallid light. A strong hand reached out and grasped Obi Wan's knee. "You had a vision? Where is she?"

His throat tightened. _Tahl._ "I don't know, I couldn't tell –"

The Jedi master's grip tightened. "Focus, Padawan! You saw her. Where is she? We _must_ find her." A flash of intense emotion – something edging on anger, on hot frustration – lit the Force with sudden fire.

_Not Tahl. Not Tahl. _ The young Jedi shied away, stumbling back to his feet. "I don't _know!_" His chest heaved and he clamped down once again. "There's a droid, and someone else. Human. A woman. Someone evil."

He could just make out the shape of Qui Gon's fists clenching upon his knees. "That's not good enough," he growled, forcing his voice into a mockery of his habitual calm.

Obi Wan made a dash for the 'fresher and succumbed to the inevitable. When he exited a few minutes later, he nearly bumped into his teacher.

Qui Gon rested a hand lightly on either of the Padawans' shoulders. "Forgive me," he murmured. "I have no right to browbeat you. I have overstepped, and I apologize."

His apprentice blinked, drawing in a trembling breath. "I want to help, master. I .. that's all I saw. I don't know what to do."

"Neither do I." Defeat hung off the syllables, but Qui Gon drew in the Force's strength with his next inhalation. "Not yet. We must be patient."

"Yes, master." A rare misery hung between them, weighting the cool, cycled and purified air with rank emotion. Haltingly, not sure whether the gesture would be rebuffed, Obi Wan stepped forward and abruptly wrapped his arms about the tall man's chest, exerting a fierce pressure. To his surprise, the embrace was returned.

A moment passed, in which the word _attachment _ whispered stern rebuke in both their minds. They stepped apart, girding themselves with Force-given patience, armoring themselves in its luminous and impersonal calm.

"We will meditate," Qui Gon decided, his voice steady and placid, betraying no unbecoming emotion, merely illuming the right path with the certainty of long experience. "Come."


	2. Chapter 2

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

* * *

"You are distracted," Yan Dooku upbraided his chosen sparring partner. His saber blade hissed sharply as it disappeared into the curved hilt.

Obi Wan bowed his head. "Forgive me, Master Dooku. I was not focused properly."

The silver-haired master prowled about him in a slow circle. His boot heels clicked softly against the dojo's polished wooden floor. "Hm," he remarked upon completing this assessing circuit. "Visions."

The young Jedi cringed. It was unnerving to be read so clearly by one to whom he was not Force-bonded, as he was with Qui Gon. Master Dooku wielded his mind like a scalpel, with an analytical severity made fearsome by the enhancing power of the Force. "Yes, master. I will keep my mind on the present moment."

This promise seemed to spark disdain in the older man. "Ah!" he sniffed. "That tired mantra is of limited use, boy. Let me suggest something more relevant."

"Master Jinn –"

Dooku silenced him with a curt gesture. "Master Jinn is a powerful Jedi, one who has forged his own path and cleaves unfailingly to the Living Force. But heed my words: a Jedi's focus is always with the Force. Your master is attuned to the Living Force above all else, and so his focus tends to… linger…. in the present moment, where that aspect of the universal energy manifests itself. However," he drew in a measured breath, his brows rising slightly, 'Those gifted with unifying visions cannot be expected to be trammeled within the same bounds. You, Padawan, must keep a wider focus, for this is how you experience the Force itself, am I not right?"

"But Master –"

Dooku made an impatient noise deep in his throat. "You are of an age to think for yourself, I should say. It's time you start doing so. Qui Gon may _need_ that from you, someday," he added, in an undertone, contemplating the young Jedi soberly.

"What if a wider focus begets anxiety and brooding?" Obi Wan countered, clamping down on the surge of reflexive loyalty that bade him make a hot and dismissive retort rather than a reasonable reply.

Dooku sighed and paced across the room to the small cabinet containing training sabers, remotes, and other commonly used items. He returned with a blindfold in his hands. "Such feelings are not always to be eschewed," he advised the Padawan. "They can be turned into sources of strength, of power."

Obi Wan's gut twisted. "Master Jinn-"

"Enough," Dooku interrupted, imperiously. "I cannot tutor you in the intricacies of Makashi if you insist on stubborn indocility." He fixed the blindfold in place over the young Jedi's eyes. "Now. Blindness also evokes instinctive reactions of anxiety. But what have you learned about the lack of sight?"

This was a Temple commonplace. "Deprivation of external senses forces us to rely more closely upon our inner feelings, and thereby the Force. Blindness is an asset to one who moves beyond the initial anxiety, who stays within the darkness long enough to…"

Dooku sighed. "Long enough to embrace it." Disappointment edged his voice. "You doubt your own insight. That will be your undoing one day, unless you conquer that vice as well."

"Yes, Master Dooku."

"The Unifying Force can also strike one as _blinding- _ its perspective is so far disproportionate to ordinary individual awareness, that it overwhelms the mind with a surfeit of light, as when one looks at the corona of a star. This is no reason to shy away from such an experience. You must learn to see blind, that is all. Now, shall we repeat the previous exercise?" He stepped backward, and abruptly his presence in the Force was veiled as well, leaving Obi Wan in the dark both figuratively and literally.

"Master. I can't … see you, or feel you."

But the only answer was a sharp snap as Dooku's blade was re-engaged.

It proved to be a very humiliating practice session.

* * *

"I had a most illumining conversation with Master Chopra at noon-meal today, Padawan."

Obi Wan knew full well what treacherous range of connotations _illumining_ might bear in Qui Gon's personal parlance; he braced himself inwardly and raised a mildly inquisitive eyebrow, signifying polite attentiveness.

Qui Gon Jinn's "sabaac face" was even more inscrutable than his own, however; and the master was shielding most effectively, so there was little hope of discerning his true thoughts. "We discussed your performance in his astronavigation course. You have made quite the impression upon him."

This phrase might have its own array of hidden barbs. Obi Wan received the seeming praise with indifference. "It isn't my best subject," he murmured, taking a cautious approach to the conversation.

One corner of Qui Gon's mouth twitched, but that was all. "Indeed? And what would you say _is_ your strength?"

The Padawan closed his mouth warily, and gathered his wits – perceiving the trap yet unsure how to circumvent it. If he were not careful, he would be inveigled into delineating the terms of his own punishment, and he had no intention of cooperating in any such trickery. He decided to stall the negotiations. "I have not thought to enumerate my strengths, master," he meekly replied. "To do so would be to court complacency and pride. I have much still to learn; it seems foolish, therefore, to focus upon what I have already achieved." It was a bit trite, he decided, but not too shabby for an extemporaneous speech delivered to a fickle and potentially hostile audience.

The Jedi master's grey eyes narrowed appraisingly. "Sadly, Obi Wan, mathematics is one discipline in which neither a silver tongue, nor native ingenuity, nor a well-honed saber style will afford you any advantage."

"So I have discovered," his apprentice agreed dryly, wondering whether his tactical evasion had gone unnoticed.

"However," Qui Gon continued, undeterred, "You have not answered the question."

_Blast._ "My greatest strength?" He tried another rhetorical strategy. "Your example, of course, master. It was your teachings which gave me the courage to endure Master Chopra's last assignment."

Humor ghosted through Qui Gon's Force presence, but he maintained his stern and leonine mien. "Then perhaps I should inspire you once again."

Obi Wan shifted in place uneasily. _Inspiration_ was another word bearing a wealth of private meanings between them. "Your wisdom is always welcome, master. Especially since BenTo Li has deprived me of my natural reserves." Qui Gon had a weakness for pathetic life forms; it was just possible that this allusion to recent tramautic events would appeal to his softer nature.

"Hm," the tall man replied callously. "I see little difference in you."

"Yes, master. In which case, there is little point in asking after my greatest strength. A fool, by definition, is devoid of such outstanding qualities; and as Master Chakora Seva says, _he who lacks special skill offers pride no opening, for his armor is ignorance."_

Qui Gon's eyes crinkled at the corners, hinting at a truce. "By definition, Obi Wan , a fool is not capable of quoting ancient philosophical texts for his own dialectical purposes, nor does he engage in flippancy as a means of shirking troublesome astronavigational problems."

"Oh." Well, that might be true, but…."Definition is a prosthesis for true intuitive understanding," he countered, this time quoting Master Jinn back at himself.

A single raised finger warned him to desist.

"I'm sorry, master… I meant no disrespect."

Qui Gon sighed heavily and studied him in silence, worry etched in the lines around his eyes, kindling in the depths of his blue gaze. And Obi Wan understood – intuitively – that the entire exchange had been nothing but a passing distraction, a vain attempt to lighten the master's spirits through play.

The Padawans' heart twisted. "I'll go speak to Master Chopra myself, now. I'm sorry, master."

But a small smile and a wave of the tall man's hand assured him that the offense was already forgotten, eclipsed by a much graver concern.

_Tahl._ Obi Wan bowed hastily and retreated, to keep his word, and to give both of them some space in which to face their private fears and demons.

* * *

Master Chopra's three eyestalks craned forward in unison, slowly blinking. "I see the problem, Padawan. You lack the requisite … _delicacy_ of mind to appreciate mathematical truth in its pure and unsullied glory."

Obi Wan swallowed down his wry appraisal of what that delicacy might consist in, and bowed his head to the elderly Graan Jedi master.

"That does not mean," Master Chopra told him, "That you are doomed to incompetence in the discipline. You _do_ aspire to pilot a ship through hyperspace, do you not?"

"I plan to keep an astromech on hand," the young Jedi pointed out. "They are famously skilled at making the calculations. I suppose they possess a certain delicacy of circuits." _Loose wires_, more likely, if it resulted in a fawning appreciation of mathematical glory or what have you, but he did not speak this thought aloud.

The Grann tsked and waved a hand at him, rummaging in the storage compartments of his desk. "Hm. You aren't the first. Life is all about treaties and saber forms and girls at your age."

The young Jedi was affronted. "Master Chopra!"

"Heh, heh, heh," the old fellow chortled merrily to himself. "He protesteth too much, methinks. Now…let's see… ah, here we are." He unbent from his extended foray into the drawers' contents with a small prize clutched in one aged hand. "I think this will pique your interest in such abstruse realms of contemplation."

Obi Wan extended a hand, curiously, to receive the tiny object placed upon his palm. "A holocron," he said, pleased and intrigued at once.

"A simple one. There are many copies of this one – it's a plaything, really. But the original was devised as a teaching tool. You know how to open it? No? Well, Master Jinn can show you, I haven't time for that sort of mundane tomfoolery. Once you open it, you'll have to solve a problem to unlock the next layer. And when you can return it to me and tell me what wisdom is locked most deeply inside, I'll know you've mastered the basics."

Obi Wan carefully stowed the beautiful crystalline artifact in a belt pouch. "It's a _toy?_" he repeated dubiously.

Master Chopra wagged a finger at him, three eyes swaying back and forth softly. "I suspect you think of saber drills as play, now don't you?"

"That's completely different," he protested. It was. It was _saber_ play.

"Come talk to me later," the Graan chuffed, steering him out the door and into the adjacent passage. 'Off you go. And no more nonsense from you. Abandon ship at Sullust indeed," he snorted indignantly.

A deep bow of respect extricated the Padawan from the mathematician's clutches, and he departed at a smart clip for happier realms, glad to have escaped relatively unscathed.

* * *

Bant Eerin tracked him down and cornered him in the Archives.

"Business or pleasure?" he inquired in a low growl, hand hovering theatrically near his saber's hilt.

The Mon Cal Padawan snorted, in the oddly wet manner of her species, and turned beautiful glassy eyes upon him in mock hurt. "Since when is there a difference? I enjoy seeing _you_ no matter the circumstance. I thought that sentiment was mutual."

"I am glad to see you, Bant," he hurriedly replied. "But you come bearing the badge of your dark office."

She glanced once at the satchel slung over her shoulder and the smock-like healer's tunic. "Would you stop blustering and let me look at you? I'm supposed to check your mouth – make sure all's healed and there's no infection."

"Can't we do this elsewhere?" he inquired, petulant.

Bant relented a bit. "If you promise not to bolt once we leave here, yes. What are you reading?" She reached out a webbed hand to snatch the holobook from his grasp. "Rise and Fall of the Teth Dynasties, Volume the Third. Stars' end, Obi, please tell me that's assigned reading and not your idea of recreation."

He followed her out the broad entryway, into the spacious hall beyond. They ducked into an unused conference room situated on the west side, and Bant pushed him into a convenient chair. "All right, open up and let's see what we have."

She poked and prodded at her leisure, with her hands and the Force. "You're awfully on edge," she observed, after a moment's forcible occupation of his personal space. "What's wrong?"

He was hardly in a position to make an articulate reply, so he settled for a small grunt of denial.

"You're a terrible liar. But this looks just fine." She released him, but stood in place, hands splayed upon hips, globular eyes regarding him with affectionate suspicion. "What is it?"

He shrugged. "Nothing. Well. Something." Qui Gon had cautioned him not to speak broadly of what his vision had concerned, for Master Uvain's self-appointed mission was of a highly confidential nature.

"Oh, you're a model of concise and pithy expression," the Mon Cal said.

"I can't tell you, Bant," he admitted. "I'm sorry. … But I am worried – and I appreciate your concern."

This statement did nothing to assuage her own bad feeling on his behalf, but Bant was a staunch friend and a healer as well. She nodded once and accepted that her compassion would have to be sufficient for now, even if it could not quell the fountain of unrest burbling just beneath her companion's reserved surface. "Well, come see me when … you know."

"When all Sith hell breaks loose?" he grinned.

"That's not funny, and you know it, " Bant scolded.

It wasn't, and they both knew it.

* * *

His dreams that night were disturbed.

He wandered a dank corridor, his footfalls echoing against its sterile edges, bespeaking hard tile and emptiness. He could see nothing, his eyes covered by a strip of cloth. Door after door passed by, felt as cold draughts against the nape of his neck. At last he reached the final threshold and crossed into the space within.

_She was there, and his hands buried themselves in her tunics. "Master Uvain."_

_Her hands felt over his face, the fingers brushing over cheekbones and lips, resting against either side, trembling slightly. "Obi Wan. You need to leave. Now. Go without me. It's too late."_

"_No." He reached up to pull the blindfold from his eyes, but when the cloth fluttered away, he was still blind. Utter blackness enveloped them both._

_Tahl's fingers touched his closed lids, skimmed over his lashes. "You're in great danger," she insisted. "Leave now."_

"_Not without you." He tried to lift her, but her body dissolved into pouring sand, into tattered mist, blending into the pervasive darkness. He cried out, and tried again to rip the veils from his eyes, but there was nothing there. _

_He was blind._

He bolted upright, in the cold grip of panic. The Force splintered into coruscating shards as he reached out a hand and abruptly flicked the light control to its full setting. For a moment he could see nothing but smearing colors. In the next heartbeat he was through the door into the common room, a wave of his hand thrusting those lights to intolerable brightness as well.

Qui Gon, perched upon a mediation cushion, squinted at him in the sudden glare.

"I'm sorry, master," the Padawan choked out. He could see. Light was everywhere, colors, shapes, motion. Light. He stood and breathed it in, drank it in, shuddered in its familiar novelty.

The Jedi master cautiously raised a hand and adjusted the lights to a muted glow.

"Master. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you." He was certain that the tall man had been meditating all night, had never retired to his sleep couch. The Force was still disturbed, though the nightmare was but a fading memory.

Qui Gon looked at him for a handful of heavy pulse-beats, the throbbing wardrum of destiny approaching over time's horizon. "What did you see?" he asked, quietly.

His apprentice settled upon the other cushion. "Nothing. I couldn't see anything … I was blind. And she told me to leave without her. That there was danger. There was a corridor – inside a …a medical ward, or maybe a laboratory."

They gazed at each other, horrified realization dawning in two pair of blue –grey eyes. "She's found Arbor Foundation," Qui Gon murmured, a muscle leaping along his bearded jawline.

Obi Wan's fingers tightened into defiant fists, clenched tight against a fate that would rip Tahl Uvain from his life as callously as it had torn away his innocence. He closed his eyes and exhaled, knowing what was expected of him as a Jedi. His hands relaxed, slowly, gradually, until the sweaty palms rested once again upon his knees.

Qui Gon watched him gravely, his mouth twisted in a rare sign of distress. His chin sank down until it nearly rested upon his chest, and his eyes closed. "She's still in great pain, Obi Wan," he said.

"We can go look – we can –"

"We need coordinates. She's been gone nine months; that sector is densely populated and not sympathetic to the Republic. And she has not been in contact."

The Padawan gritted his teeth and swiped a hand across his flushed cheeks. For a moment, he had the illusion of blindness again, and he almost reached to snatch away the cloth from his before his eyes. A pall seemed to descend upon their quarters, an ephemeral smothering of what light burned quietly in the overhead illuminators, a shroud winding its inexorable sheets about both him and Qui Gon, constricting and binding, a hard clutching hard about his heart.

"Breathe," Qui Gon reminded him, brushing the fingers of one hand across his knee.

He inhaled, and wiped his face again, careless that his mentor might see, and offered the Jedi master a wan smile.

And then Qui Gon's comlink chimed, startling them both.

"Jinn."

Ban Yaro, Padawan to the Temple's communications expert, cut into their silent vigil. "Master Jinn, I've been asked to request your presence in the comm center, immediately. There's been an emergency transmission – something you need to see."

Qui Gon's large hand enclosed the tiny device completely. Obi Wan could not help but notice that a tiny tremor ran through the fingers. "Let's go."

They rose, donning their cloaks, and half ran to the lower levels.


	3. Chapter 3

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

* * *

Merin Soma was waiting for them in the communications center, Ban Yaro's shock of red hair just visible over his shoulder. The Padawan was busily making minute adjustments a long range transceiver console.

"It's still not clear, master… but I think I can narrow down the broadburst pattern, which should give us definitie coordinates… at least, a solar system."

"Keep trying," Master Soma instructed him. "Ah, you're here already." His eyes raked over the pair of newcomers, mouth thinning into a grave line. "I've already alerted the Council, Master Jinn, but I think you should be forewarned." He glanced at Obi Wan, then back at the tall Jedi again. "It is… disturbing in nature."

But Qui Gon merely waved an impatient hand, signifying readiness.

"Here it is," the communications expert sighed. "This came in a few minutes ago."

A badly focused image unfolded into blurred and wavering life above the projector plate. The static interference nearly obscured the speaker's features, but in the flashes of clarity between bursts, Tahl Uvain's haggard face appeared in clear focus.

Obi Wan looked down; the Jedi master did not appear to be clothed. Qui Gon's hand tightened about his saber's hilt.

"This is Jedi Master Tahl Uvain," the speaker gasped, leaning forward over the holocam as though barely able to support her weight. "This message is to be transmitted to the Jedi Council on Coruscant immediately, priority code alpha…" She closed her eyes, swayed visibly. There was a dread-filled pause, in which Tahl's shimmering effigy glanced once over its shoulder before rallying and looking up again. "..These are the coordinates…." Her next words were lost in a blitz of static – "Send a team to –" More interference. When the picture reintegrated, Tahl was slumped forward again, eyes closed, a grimace of severe pain on her features. She swallowed, and glanced over her shoulder again. "Oh, Qui Gon…" she muttered, and then slid down, disappearing beneath some invisible horizon, the empty field where she had stood a moment earlier glimmering forlornly in the dim space above the plate. The message ended in a soft fizzle of light.

Qui Gon Jinn said nothing. Merin Soma said nothing. Obi Wan said nothing.

Ban Yaro coughed, abruptly ending the shocked interlude. "Master," he murmured softly. "I think I've located the system of origin. It's a small, non-charted star just coreward of the Rishi Maze. Designated Ossk –88, non-inhabited satellites."

"Give me the exact coordinates," Qui Gon ordered. Ban Yaro silently obliged, loading the calculations onto the Jedi master's datapad.

Merin Soma studied his colleague carefully. "I thought you should see it.. since she mentions you by name. Is there anything I can do to help?'

"No. No, but thank you, Merin." Qui Gon nodded solemnly, his gaze still trained on the empty space above the holoprojector equipment, his eyes distant as though seeking to touch one who was countless light-years distant. Obi Wan swallowed, counting his rapid heartbeats, quelling the strange upheaval of bile in his throat.

Qui Gon's personal comlink chimed.

"Jinn."

"Qui Gon." Yan Dooku's cultured tones were jarringly at odds with the cold realization of the moment. "Your presence is _requested_ in the Council chambers immediately." The directive was issued in a tone that subtly transmuted civil request into accusing mandate.

"I will be there."

"Post haste, I should think," Dooku drawled, closing the link on his side.

"Master?'

Qui Gon jerked his head in the direction of the exit and led the way out, Obi Wan trotting at his heels. "This will not be pleasant," the Jedi master remarked, taking a broad staircase three steps at a time.

The Temple's corridors were relatively empty at this time of night. They swept through concourses and annex halls in an unbroken charge for their destination. "Do you…can you…?"

Qui Gon spared his apprentice a brief look of sympathy. "She is still alive," he grunted. "I would feel otherwise." His pace increased, causing the young Jedi to jog beside him.

Neither of them spoke his thoughts concerning the likelihood of this fact enduring beyond the near future.

* * *

The antechamber was empty; no other meetings were scheduled in the dead of night. Only the low safety-lights set near the floor illumined the small space, wrapping master and apprentice in a hushed dimness. Though the Force was full and abundantly present, overflowing the bounds of mere sensation, it did nothing to palliate their shared horror. They stood, patiently, impatiently, waiting to be admitted to council, each entrenched in his private battle with unbecoming emotion.

"Do you think the Council will grant us permission to go after Master Uvain?"

Qui Gon roused himself from his grim introspection long enough to look down at his fretful Padawan. Obi Wan's face was a careful mask, features carved into a forced serenity. Only his pale complexion and an almost undefinable softness in his blue eyes served to betray his inner turmoil.

"We shall go, whether or not permission is granted," Qui Gon assured him. His mind was already made up; this meeting was a mere formality.

The young Jedi shifted, anxiety twisting in the Force.

"You, of course, may remain here," the tall man told him. "I do not ask you to participate in my defiance."

"My place is by your side, master," Obi Wan replied steadily, and without hesitation, steeling himself and facing the burnished Council chamber doors squarely, as a man going to his own execution.

Qui Gon would have smiled had his heart not been so heavy with foreboding. He briefly touched the Padawan's shoulder and turned to the doors himself, as the gleaming portal slid open to admit them into the circular room beyond. Together they stepped from the quiet vestibule into a circle of vibrant tension, frank concern and unspoken opposition swirling uneasily in the disturbed Force.

Dawn light filtered through the curving windows, casting the handful of Councilors in ghastly luminance. The session had been called in haste: Master Yoda's wisping crown of silver was more unkempt even than ususal, Mace's dark cloak was drawn closed over his chest, suggesting that he might be clad in nothing but a night-shift beneath; Master Piell's drooping mien was more fearsome than ever; Oppo Rancisis lacked his habitual hypnotic swaying motion. The only one who appeared unruffled, impeccably groomed and composed, was Yan Dooku, who lounged in his chair with a bored air of noblesse oblige.

Qui Gon and his apprentice reached the center of the floor and made their bow.

"Seen the transmission, you have," Yoda snorted, foregoing all civilities.

"Yes," the tall Jedi answered. "Obi Wan and I are prepared to depart immediately."

Dooku raised his brows. "Master Uvain's whereabouts were unknown to the Council before we received this message," he stated, coolly. "Would you care to explain why she named you specifically?"

Qui Gon folded his hands together placidly. "We are well acquainted; and she is in great distress. Every minute we waste on debate does nothing to lessen her pain."

"Pain, say you?" Yoda interrupted sharply.

"Was that not obvious from her transmission?" Qui Gon growled.

"Master Uvain is in grave trouble," Obi Wan interjected, against all protocol. His chin came up, eyes glittering. "I have seen it… in a vision. We _must_ help her."

A single burning look from Yoda struck him silent. "Our own counsel will we keep on what _must_ be done, Padawan," the ancient master retorted, emphasizing the last word with a rap of his stick against his chair's base.

The young Jedi took a step backward, mortified.

Mace Windu's shadowed gaze slid sideways to meet that of Dooku. "Master Uvain's present coordinates indicate that she is outside Republic boundaries, in a region already under investigation by the Sentinels. Can you tell us what she was doing there, Qui Gon?"

The tall man shifted, stubbornly. "That is irrelevant to her need for assistance," he countered.

"I don't think so," Mace rumbled, leaning forward. "If she has undertaken a dangerous endeavor without Council approval, one which impinges on a delicate investigation, I think we have a right to know. And I _sense_ that you are withholding information, Qui Gon." The dark-complected master bristled with a rare irritation, his features carved into unremitting lines.

Obi Wan glanced up at his mentor, alarmed and perhaps appealing.

Jaw clenching, Qui Gon bowed his head, neither affirming nor denying this allegation. "She went to find Arbor Foundation…. And it would appear she has succeeded where the Shadows have not."

Dooku made no movement, but a frigid wind seemed to rise within the seething Force.

Yoda grumbled wetly in his throat, rubbing a clawed hand over his scalp ridges. "Interfere she should not have done. Audacious. Ill-advised."

"I wil not abandon a friend to torment because this Council deems her actions _ill advised,"_ Qui Gon declared, throwing back his shoulders. "If we are done discussing this matter, I will be on my way."

Mace was on his feet, the Force rife with outrage. "Jinn." His voice was a thunderclap breaking over the ramparts of his formidable self-control, even as the sun rose beyond the cityscape. "You sent her on this wild bantha chase. Her attachment to you motivated this conniving folly."

Some strong emotion ghosted across the tall man's leonine face. "Then I shall be the one to bear the brunt of responsibility," he shot back, pivoting on his heel and sweeping toward the doors without even the suggestion of a bow. He hesitated at the threshold. "Obi Wan."

The Padawan, left appalled in the chamber's center, flushed a brilliant crimson. He made a deep obeisance to the gathered Councilors and followed his master out, hands clenching into fists as he dogged the tall man's steps into the vestibule and then the lift.

Qui Gon raised a hand to forestall any argument. "Do not say it," he warned. "You are under no obligation to play accomplice. But if you wish to accompany me, let it be with a wiling heart and a _quiet_ tongue."

Obi Wan clamped his mouth shut, resentment swiftly ousting his initial flood of shame in the Council chamber. He turned his face away, struggling to contain a torrent of contentious objections. At the base of the south tower, the lift doors opened again.

"Well?" Qui Gon inquired, curtly.

"I'm coming with you," his student told him, blue gaze unwavering beneath the master's penetrating regard. "With a _quiet tongue."_ His brows beetled into a line of furious determination.

The Jedi master closed his eyes and exhaled. "I am sorry, ObI Wan," he said after a moment, "You are undeserving of my wrath." He tentatively laid a hand on the young Jedi's shoulder. "And I am undeserving of your loyalty."

"No, master… I .."

There were others present in the soaring central hall. One corner of Qui Gon's mouth twisted in rueful acknowledgement. "Come."

They hastened toward the Temple hangar bay, side by side.

* * *

"Qui Gon."

Halfway along the extended docking pad, Qui Gon turned. Mace approached, dark cloak billowing in the strong gust of wind from outside. Obi Wan turned too, and then disappeared into the ship at a signal from his mentor, ducking his head and withdrawing with consummate tact.

Mace caught up to him in a handful of swift strides.

"I cannot be persuaded to desist," Qui Gon warned him, planting his feet squarely at shoulder's width and staring down one of the few members of the Order who might be considered a fair physical match for him.

Mace's dark eyes flashed with what would have been – in another man – wounded personal feelings. "I've come to see you off," he growled.

Qui Gon relaxed, features softening. He nodded, cautiously. "Forgive me."

The Korun master's hand gripped his forearm. "Bring her home safely, my friend."

And those were heavy words, reminders of a shared childhood they had all put behind them, of days spent in more innocent pursuits, before duty had set them upon three divergent paths, three callings with no room for sentiment or nostalgia.

"I will do my utmost," he promised. _There is no try:_ the mantra rang sonorous in both their minds. They bowed each to the other, right hands upon their sabers' hilts, each mirroring in the other a disparate self, an alternate world.

"May the Force be with you," Mace said by way of parting, and it was no mere formal benediction.

Qui Gon returned the brief grasp on his arm with one of his own, and they stepped apart, Mace back into the shelter of the docking hangar, Qui Gon up the ship's ramp to join his apprentice.

A few moments later, the shuttle lifted off into Coruscant's frenetic skies.

* * *

"I'll handle the piloting, master."

With a brief squeeze of his apprentice's shoulder and a fleeting smile of gratitude, Qui Gon retreated to the claustrophobic passenger hold, to meditate. Obi Wan narrowed his focus to a severe practicality; navigating the space-commuter lanes leading through Coruscant's atmosphere and gravity well was a nightmare at best. When they had edged their way past the teeming clouds of incoming and outbound flights, and attained to a green clearance status, as relayed by the transponder, he gripped the yoke, double checked the pre-programmed navcomp, and quietly pushed them over the edge of rational extension into the weird netherworld of hyperspace.

The drives thrummed, incalculably powerful, beneath him. The Force stilled into a soundless plenitude all about him, powerful beyond even the infinities of energy compressed within the ships' engines. His heart beat, his lungs drew in life from the cycled air. There was nothing to do.

In Qui Gon's absence, he dared to nudge the heating unit's controls a bit higher. The chill of space was magnified to obscene proportions in supra-light travel; he would never grow accustomed to it. He pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders and rested back against the padded pilot's seat, watching the nauseating sworls of warped light caress the viewport, an endless loop of undefined, directionless blue and white. The computer blipped for his attention, and proudly announced that the estimated time of transit was…. Stars' end, more standard hours than he cared to contemplate. Obi Wan sighed.

His fingers idly checked over the contents of his belt pouches, making a silent and tactile inventory of the equipment stored there; and in the midst of this routine search, they re-discovered the tiny holocron Master Chopra had given him. His brows crept upward wryly. Transdimensional flight was boring enough to make the prospect of even mathematical riddles an alluring one.

He held the eight sided crystal on his open palm, and tried to open it, gently prodding at it with the Force. Nothing happened. He could feel Qui Gon still deep in meditation, and did not wish to disturb the Jedi master for something as trivial as instruction in an obscure skill. The holocron glinted in his hand, as though winking at him, daring him to broach its defenses.

A challenge was something he could not resist. He turned the delicate object between thumb and forefinger, holding it up against the muted glow of the hyperspace tunnel outside. Master Chopra had said that there were many copies of this …_toy…_ which would imply that he, Obi Wan, was not the only Padawan ever to have despaired of mastering multi-matrix differential integration. Come to think of it, the elderly Graan had not even seemed surprised by his failure on that count. He had almost been amused.

It wasn't funny. He scowled at the glittering facets of the crystal, mind wandering back over the impossible calculations involved in that last confounded assignment. He retraced his fruitless steps again, and came up with the same conclusion: he wasn't cut out to be a theoretical mathematician any more than he was cut out to be a farmer. The problem was tricky, and complex, and Force help him, _inane._ On the other hand, it was humiliating to be _beaten _by something as bland and inconsequential as a pile of symbols and numbers. Intolerable, really. He stared through the viewport, concentrating, trying once again to find the flaw in his reasoning…

..when the holocron softly unlocked, its eight gleaming faces separating slightly, a thin vein of text appearing within the empty space between their edges. Startled, he almost let the thing drop, its hovering form rotating above his outstretched palm. He brought it to eye level and squinted at the hidden message.

To master that for which we have no natural affinity is to master ourselves. The truly disciplined soul is most attentive to that which challenges him most.

"Oh, Thank you," he muttered. It took only a small snap of Force energy to close the thing up, the edges sealing and its light snuffed. It fell back upon his palm, and he shoved it vexedly into the same belt pouch. "So enlightening."

Qui Gon dropped into the copilot's seat beside him. "You are annoyed, my Padawan."

Obi Wan ran a hand through his bristled hair. "I am struggling with Master Chopra's advanced astronavigation class," he admitted.

The tall Jedi leaned back, and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. "I never really learned those interstitial lapse algorithms, either," he said. "It is not a matter of shame."

"But, master… how did you pass the course? Was it not required?"

Qui Gon cocked an eyebrow at him. "Yes, it was required – even in the misty depths of time, when I was your age." His mouth quirked a bit. "I managed somehow."

"How?" his apprentice persisted.

The Jedi master shrugged. "Guesswork."

"You did not _fake_ your way through the final exam! That's impossible."

But Qui Gon merely looked at him awry. "You are forever dictating to me what is possible or impossible. The Living Force is a powerful ally and enhancement of natural intuition. My own mathematical skills are limited… but with the Force to abet my efforts, I have great confidence in my _guesswork."_

Obi Wan was stymied. He folded his hands into opposite sleeves and stared at the instrument panel. "Yes, master." Only Qui Gon Jinn could have managed to scrape by on sheerest instinct.

"I recall that Tahl was quite peeved because I outscored her.. and she is a natural genius in mathematics." His fond memory quickly transmuted into present pain, and he exhaled slowly.

After an awkward silence, they exchanged places – Qui Gon to take over the piloting station, Obi Wan to rest in the rear compartment, in preparation for whatever lay ahead. But neither of them rested at ease.


	4. Chapter 4

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 4**

* * *

_"Here, Padawan, glut yourself at will. Master Qui Gon has entrusted me to feed you in his absence, and I intend to carry out my commission with zeal."_

_The scent of the spicy djo was enticing, familiar. Master Tahl's eyes were golden, tawny and full of life, of untold secrets kept guarded behind their thick fringe of lashes. Her smile radiated outward form her eyes, a sun perpetually breaking over some inner horizon. And when she deftly swapped a bowl of food for his datapad, he merely smiled back and made no attempt to recover his property._

_"Master Qui Gon did not study half this much at your age. Did you know that, young one?"_

_"But I haven't half the connection to the Force that he does… I won't ever be the Jedi that he is, though I am honored to be his Padawan."_

_Tahl's hand against his cheek: a gentle reassurance. "That's foolish to think – and untrue. And your master has wholly different opinion on the matter." _

_Her eyes bespoke a heart as warm and frank as the Living Force itself, twin pools of molten liquid, amber light. He would do anything to prove himself worthy of Qui Gon's regard; but Tahl's was given and received without effort, as naturally as the rain falling upon the open plains. She was more than a friend, and something other than a teacher._

_But he found he had no word or concept for such a person, and so she remained simply Master Uvain, of fierce wit and wry counsel and boundless compassion._

"Obi Wan."

A familiar voice and a hand on his shoulder brought him back to waking reality, and the bland bulkheads of the Republic shuttle. He sat up upon the single inset bunk, squinting at Qui Gon in the dim lights, still half convinced that the aroma of spicy djo pervaded the passenger hold.

"Another vision?" the Jedi master inquired, softly.

He shook his head. "No, master… just a dream." A good dream, such a rare gift that he was loathe to cast off its tranquil spell quite yet. But as ever, duty called. "Have we arrived?'

"We are on the outskirts of the neighboring system, Ossk-34. Come see what we've found."

Obi Wan rose and followed the tall man forward to the cockpit. Hyperspace had resolved once again into realspace, an endless curtain of spangled velvet stretching before them. Just past the viewport, a brilliant corona of light shattered into visible spectra, fingers of color refreacted in the curving transparisteel. And ahead, a ring-shaped ship hovered, a huge shipping freighter disgorging goods in a steady stream of barges and tugs, so many specks rising and descending from the massive construct to the surface of a dull grey moon below. The curve of a sickly gas giant peeked up along the viewport's bottom edge.

"That," Qui Gon informed him, "Is a Trade Federation shipping vessel, making deliveries to this system. If there is indeed any hidden facility in the next star system, this would be the most convenient – and possibly the _only_ commerce hub for the region."

The Padawan watched the trickle of cargo boxes and their sluggish conveyances enter and exit the circular Trade Federation ship, like so many scavenging insects gutting a corpse. "So if there are supplies being sent to the Arbor Foundation, they would have to be funneled through this shipping yard? But why not simply have goods delievered directly?"

"The Nemoidians are a slippery crew, Padawan. I would not wish them to have cognizance of my private address either; and besides, there is much risk of an incoming ship being traced. No, much safer to have supplies delivered here and then pick them up by courier. And a laboratory requires a great deal of equipment and supplies. If the Force is with us, there will be a shipment heading out to the Foundation soon."

"And that would save us the trouble of searching an entire star system and its asteroid belt," Obi Wan concluded, pleased with the elegance of this solution. He sat in the copilot's chair and swiveled round to face Qui Gon as the Jedi master nudged their vessel closer to the line of service ships and cargo tugs strung between the moon and the Trade Federation behemoth. "But how will we follow the courier without being discovered?"

Qui Gon's lips curved. "We shall _become_ the cargo," he explained.

* * *

The shipping yards on the unnamed moon had been built with an absolute minimum of architectural imagination; warehouses and docking pads occupied a sprawling platform set above several tiered sublevels of hangar bays for incoming delivery vessels and ground conveyances. Droids oversaw the entire operation. Scattered sentients in various uniforms and piloting gear milled about, each crew attending to its own business- fetching or dropping off goods and then skittering away to their various far-flung ports of origin.

Nobody cared that another shuttle among the hundreds already docked in the crowded parking hangar had the Republic ambassadorial insignia splashed across its starboard hull. The Jedi descended the ramp into the universally recognizable stink and clamor of a space port maintenance bay. The duracrete was begrimed with the usual dark stains; clanking and hissing and the buzz of service bots echoed off the high girders.

Qui Gon led the way down a broad aisle, heading for an informational kiosk. "Here," he told his Padawan, tossing a credit chit in the boy's direction. "Pay for our docking fees at that terminal. I'll see whether I can narrow down our search." He leaned over the datascreen as Obi Wan confidently tackled the permit vending machine.

"First half hour free, twelve credits per additional hour or part thereof, maximum daily fee _sixty-five_ credits?" the young Jedi muttered in astonishment, surveying the posted rates. "Aren't we allowed diplomatic immunity?"

But the permit dispenser merely blinked its recalcitrance, demanding its terms of highway robbery without any sign of compunction, or indeed, of having heard his outraged objection. Obi Wan paid for three days, and pocketed the change, noting wryly that a Jedi's communion with the Force did not spare him either death or the basic inconveniences of life, and wondering whether there ought not to be some sort of instructive curriculum at the Temple explaining the latter bits in detail? The docking permit clamped magnetically to the shuttle's hull. This duty fulfilled, he sought out Qui Gon once more.

"Shipments scheduled for pick up by private corporate interests are stowed in warehouses four and five," the Jedi master announced. "We'll start there. We're looking for anything marked for Arbor Foundation – or more likely, simply an unspecified location in the Ossk-88 system. We'll have check the manifests visually."

* * *

The enormity of this task made itself felt as soon as they entered warehouse three. Towers of stacked cargo palettes and hard-edged shipping containers rose nearly to the rafters; a phalanx of servitor droids hummed and buzzed along the canyons. Hover cranes and forklifts waited to assist in the shifting and stacking of these boxes as they were claimed. The Jedi slipped into the shadow of the nearest colossal wall as a barge pushing the latest incoming deliveries appeared in the doorway. Several low-grade droids scooted forward to sort the incoming packages into their proper places.

"That one." Qui Gon pointed to a narrow cargo crate, not much wider than a coffin, with ventilation slits texturing its near side. The droid slotted this relatively small box into place in the massive wall, and burbled away to fetch the next one.

"Are you sure, master?" They leaned over the crate a minute later, using the Force to gently extract it from the pile.

"Yes. Here is the shipping manifest. No name given, but Ossk 88 designated as the primary system. I imagine someone will be along soon to pick this up; the contents are, ah, _fragile."_

Obi Wan looked upon the smooth plastoid crate dubiously. Scratching and squealing noises issued form its depths, and a distinctive mangy scent. "Laboratory rodents," he guessed. "Lovely."

"Perfect," Qui Gon agreed, missing – or deliberately ignoring - his apprentice's facetious undertone. "Quickly. Let us liberate these poor creatures from what would undoubtedly be a rather unpleasant fate." He pried the crate open with a careful application of the Force.

Liberated prisoners promptly shrieked and scuttled in every direction, whipcord tails disappearing into the gaps between stacked cargo boxes with impressive speed and agility. Qui Gon swept the box clean with a wave of his hand, strewing soiled sawdust and rat excrement over the scrubbed warehouse decking.

"In you go," he ordered.

His Padawan was not as enthusiastic about the plan as the previous occupants had been. "Master…. Could we not find a more _suitable_ container?"

The tramp of approaching footsteps, and an urgent ripple in the Force, prompted them to action. Qui Gon thrust a commanding finger at the interior of the crate, brooking no further objection, and snugged himself down inside the narrow space beside Obi Wan. The lid was pulled back into place in another moment, just before a droid and a pair of booted feet made themselves heard in the aisle.

"Ah, chissszk," a guttural voice echoed off the high walls of crates and boxes. "Another one."

"We don't have any more room – we'll pick it up tomorrow," another voice, heavy with boredom, proposed.

Obi Wan nudged his mentor – no difficult task since they were wedged tightly together in a space barely sufficient for one full grown man, much less an exceptionally tall, broad-shouldered one and his stripling apprentice.

The Jedi master made a subtle gesture of compulsion with the fingers of one hand, and the speaker hesitated. "Oh, what the kriff. Just load it up. We'll get it all in one go and then we can have a quickie run to the cantina before we head out."

The box was lifted with the aid of a hoverbarge. Mercifully, the mechanical operator did not seem perturbed by the cargo's excessive weight. There was a bump, a jostle which had Obi Wan cursing between his teeth as Qui Gon's full weight was momentarily thrown atop him, another bump and a lurching crash to a hard deck; then silence and the distant thrum of repulsors.

"Now what?" the Padawan demanded, squirming already. He hoped this covert operation would not be of lengthy duration.

"Now we wait," Qui Gon placidly informed him. "We are about to be hand-delivered to Arbor Biogenetic Foundation. Relax – and _hold still_, Padawan, for the love of the Force."

The young Jedi gritted his teeth and steeled himself for a very long journey in very close quarters. Wait until Master Uvain heard about _this_ adventure. She would never let Qui Gon live it down – and that was some consolation.

* * *

"_Ow,_ master," Obi Wan hissed, as Qui Gon's elbow accidentally clipped the side of his head.

A swift tug on his learner's braid reminded him to keep his voice down to a nearly inaudible murmur. "You squeak very boldly for a laboratory rodent, my Padawan," the Jedi master whispered, carefully shifting his weight again without causing further damage to the young man practically squashed against him by the tight confines of their hiding place.

"I think I would much prefer to be on this mission with Master Yoda, or Yaddle, or Master Piell," his apprentice grumbled.

"Brat," Qui Gon muttered, cautiously flexing his legs to keep circulation moving. In the cramped interior of the shipping crate, his long limbs meant he was nearly wedged in place. Obi Wan had a slightly easier time of it, being more compact on the whole; but neither of them was particularly comfortable in the stifling dark of the plastoid box. And there was something to be said for _personal space,_ Jedi training or no. "It could be worse. You might be cuddled up with Master Troon." The hirsute clan-master was a favorite with all his young charges, but his copious black fur would be a positive detriment to collegial relations, should the mellow-tempered but enormous Jedi be unlucky enough to find himself in this same predicament.

"You're nearly as hairy, master; I don't see much difference," Obi Wan complained.

"Your envy is manifest, and ill becomes you," the older man teased. "And I thought you were told to look on the bright side?"

"Getting out of here?" his student darkly retorted. "I am _very much_ focused on it, I assure you. Speaking of which," he added, vainly attempting to worm his way into a less awkward position, "Are we –"

"Do not say it," Qui Gon warned. "The answer to your first question, is _no._ And the answer to its immediate successor is, _as long as it takes us to get there._"

The Padawan sighed, a hot and wordless vexation settling in what little air there was between them. "Wonderful."

Ever the indomitable optimist, Qui Gon felt compelled to point out at least one obvious advantage pertaining to this novel means of transport. "I at least am thankful that I do not have to endure your griping about the _chill_ of space travel," he remarked. "Perhaps we should adopt this as our habitual mode of transit. It's rather cozy, wouldn't you agree?" He demonstrated the truth of this statement by wrapping the unsuspecting Padawan in a sudden and vise-like hug, one which very nearly elicited a rat-like yelp from his apprentice and earned him an inadvertent thump in the ribs with the young Jedi's elbow.

"Ow," he smiled, releasing his crushing hold. "We are now even, I think."

Obi Wan pulled his tunics straight, tightly contained surliness leaking across their bond, despite his best efforts to shield "Very funny, master."

It was some time before Qui Gon was done softly chuckling to himself.

* * *

"Master," Obi Wan announced with a crisp civility, "I am about to succumb to stark and raving insanity."

Qui Gon quirked a smile in the smothering darkness of their prison, or disguise. "You don't sound it."

"It's the _truth,"_ his Padawan insisted. "I think we've been in here at least a standard week."

"Four and a half standard hours, Obi Wan. We should be there soon. I can sense it. If you weren't teetering so precariously on the brink of madness, you would too."

The young Jedi snorted and writhed himself into a new, but no less uncomfortable position.

The Jedi master released a sharp breath – one that might have been tinged with irritation. "Stop fidgeting or I shall be inspired to contrive some new and challenging training exercises," Qui Gon threatened.

This ultimatum had the desired effect; with an act of adamantine resolve, the Padawan forced himself into utter stillness. The mention of "training exercises", however, reminded him of something else. His fingers sought in his belt pouch and withdrew the tiny holocron.

"What have you there?"

"Master Chopra gave it to me… but I have trouble opening it."

"Hm." Qui Gon plucked the delicate object from his apprentice's fingers. "Oh. _This,"_ he said, enigmatically. "To open a holocron, you must center your focus upon the wisdom you wish to receive. In this case, I think, putting yourself in a frame of mind ready for mathematical abstraction should do the trick."

Obi Wan made a soft noise of disgust. "That's not happening at the present moment," he decided. "I can't think with you breathing down my neck, master, and I intend no disrespect."

"You lack confidence," the Jedi master observed, as the holocron unfolded in mid-air above his extended hand. The only source of light in their unusual cloister, it glittered a brilliant blue as it hovered gently in mid-air. This time, instead of an unwelcome platitude, its inner depths displayed a mathematical formula. "There you are. I think you are meant to solve that before it will unlock any further secrets."

The young Jedi sighed.

"You haven't anything better to do," Qui Gon pointed out mildly. "Besides drive me to distraction. Why don't you give it a try?"

"There is no try," his student snapped, but the cupped his own hand about the glowing crystalline object and squinted into its rotating depths, scowling and murmuring under his breath as he worked to solve the problem. Eventually, the solution discovered, the pieces of the holocron rearranged themselves to reveal the reward of his patience and diligence.

_Our weaknesses can become our strengths, when they are faced squarely rather than avoided. We cannot use trickery to escape our own deficiencies, for the self is more treacherous than any other foe._

Obi Wan grunted out some creative but uncouth response to these aphorisms and promptly closed his hand around the crystal, reshaping it into a compact octagon.

The Jedi master ignored his verbal slip and indulged in a smug smile. "You would have done better to complete the assignment in the first place," he advised his disgruntled Padawan. "Master Chopra takes no prisoners."

* * *

At last the suffocating ennui was interrupted by voices and motion. The tramp of worker's boots, the familiar hum of a respulsor lift, the hiss and creak of pressure valves and hatches being opened. The Jedi gathered the Force to themselves, prepared for nothing and anything.

"Rodents," the gravelly voice from earlier muttered. "Better get these transferred to the holding cages. What a crock – I'm at two hours overtime already."

Within the cargo crate, Qui Gon again moved his hand in a subtle sweeping gesture.

"Nah," the fellow outside decided. "They're indestructible. 'Nother night in the box won't hurt 'em. Just leave that with the rest of this stuff – we'll unpack in the morning."

"Right. 'S on yer head if the lady boss blaws a gasket, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

The heavy footfalls faded into nothingness, and the sharp hiss of a sealed door alerted the stowaways that the coast was clear. Qui Gon cautiously applied pressure to the crate lid, and reached out with the Force and his natural senses, wary of automated guards or security systems. A moment's pause decided him in favor of escape, and he slid the heavy panel onto the floor.

Obi Wan was clambering out of the box practically before the plastoid sheet had hit the decks. He stood almost clumsily, grimacing as circulation returned to deadened nerves and muscles, and rubbed at his stiff neck. "Those were _not_ first class berths, master," he pointed out.

"A Jedi craves not personal luxury," Qui Gon quipped, taking a good look around the small storage shed in which they were presently confined. Other shipping boxes lay stacked and ordered along two walls and the greater part of the duracrete floor. He re-fastened the lid of their own crate in place and left it with the others. "We are now rats in a maze. Let us see if we can discover the center."

His Padawan nodded in grim agreement, and the tall Jedi pointed upward to a small grated panel in the blank acoustic-buffered ceiling.

Obi Wan groaned. "Ventilation shafts. My speciality."


	5. Chapter 5

**Lineage V**

* * *

**6.**

* * *

"Oh…lovely." Obi-Wan crawled – or perhaps a better word for this inane exercise would be _squirmed-_ his way through the extraordinarily narrow width of the ventilation shaft, pulling his weight forward in agonizing increments, his fingers curling hard against the slippery surface beneath him, arms dragging him through the dusty and lightless tunnel one grunting fraction of a meter at a time.

He could almost _hear_ Qui-Gon's encouraging words through their Force bond. _Just a bit farther. You're nearly there._

A draft of fresh air alerted him that he had come to a cross-passage, and he briefly contemplated exploring it, but the opening was barely larger than a hand-span, so he kept pushing straight forward, muscles in his back and shoulders now aching with the sustained exertion. He projected his acute discomfort through the Force, teeth gritted as he wormed his way along the shaft. _You are doing this next time, master._

_You are far better suited to it, little one._

He hissed his disapproval of the nickname and the entire situation. _It's cramping my style. And everything else._

The passage abruptly narrowed, and he almost despaired of making further progress, but the Jedi master's urgent insistence beat like a pulse beneath his awareness, so he braced himself and shoved his shoulders through the tiny aperture, feeling the sides of the tunnel press in above and below, on both sides. Now he was compelled to scoot forward using his toes to gain leverage, the hastily-welded seams in the ceiling ripping at his skull, his shoulder blades, his rump as he squeezed past. _You owe me!_

_A whupping, perhaps._

He scoffed, low in his throat, and made a renewed effort to push forward, to bring this test of his mettle to a swift conclusion. Ahead, the dull glint of circuits was visible through the gloom. The inset security system controls, the object of his quest. He set his jaw and _writhed, _ surging forward in one tremendous effort.

Something sticky and clinging covered his face, clotted in his nostrils and clung to his lashes. Repulsed, he tried to draw back, only to discover that he was wedged firmly in place. Nor could he effectively wipe the stringy mess off with his hand. He spat and snorted and vainly tried to wipe the cobwebs off on his shoulder.

_Padawan – what's wrong? _Qui-Gon had sensed his distress.

Scuttling legs tickled his hands, whispered against the skin beneath his tunic sleeves, brushed feather-light down his chest, between the crossed layers of cloth. He shuddered in disgust, rapping his head smartly on the roof as he reflexively jerked backward. "Ugh! _Blast it!"_

_Obi-Wan. Focus._

Focus? He spat an arachnid out of his mouth and hissed out several other colorful phrases Qui Gon would in no way countenance, had he been privy to their expression, and then squirmed forward, while the skittering bugs crawled over him, under his clothing, over his face and hair, down his back, into his ears, across his face. _So… vile. So…. repulsive. _

_Padawan. The security system._

He was doing his star-forsaken best, for the love of Sith! Arachnid bodies smeared to gritty paste beneath his dragging weight. Others erupted from their hiding places, frantically crawling over his body, some biting the nape of his neck, the back s of his hands. He hoped they weren't too poisonous. He shoved forward one last time and found himself in hand's reach of the panel. His fumbling fingers found the circuit board, the connections, the switches. The Force guided him – in a moment, he had jammed and disabled anything and everything he could, some of the main relays fused together when he routed them into each other. Only a few sparks smoldered on his skin. The arachnids retreated in the wake of the spitting light, leaving him in uncomfortable silence.

_Now what?_

For a moment he was alone in the crushing tunnel, his heartbeat the only sound to texture the musty gloom. Qui Gon blinked out for a long minute, and then finally reappeared as he loosened his shields again.

_There are sentient guards on this level… but you've done well. Go down into the passage below. I'll join you._

He twisted and turned until he had a shoulder underneath himself, his torso turned sideways. This gave him just enough room to work at the paneling below his body with the fingers of one hand, prying at the grime-crusted plastoid. A crack, a slip sideways, and the panel slid out of its moorings, a sudden gap opening beneath him.

His somersault to the hard floor of the hallway below was not a model of gymnastic grace, but he landed softly – quietly- on one knee and one hand, crouched and ready for action. No alarms sounded; no lights flashed. The Force remained taut with warning , but did not flare with strident alarm. He could sense Qui-Gon's cautious approach, and pressed himself against one wall of the dim passageway.

They had penetrated the first layer of defenses.

* * *

"This way."

Arbor Foundation was a sprawling labyrinth, a nightmarish and gargantuan industrial facility built of a sickly green granite, its inner passages lined in a matching plastoid tile. The very illumination banks overhead spilled a squeamish radiance upon the slick surfaces of wall and floor.

"Canisters, master – some marked toxic. What are these for, I wonder?"

Qui Gon stooped to examine the row of heavy pressurized gas containers lined against a wall. "Dioxis," he murmured, gravely. "They are developing bioweapons, perhaps. But I sense this is not the level we need. We must find a central schematic – there should be a control room or office somewhere. We can tap into their records to find where they are holding Tahl."

They passed another line of heavy metallic doors. Obi-Wan's steps slowed as they progressed further into the heart of the laboratory. Qui-Gon slowed, and turned his head over one shoulder, his long hair sweeping over pale tabards. "Keep moving," he advised. "Anchor yourself in the Force; the sensation will pass."

Wordlessly, his apprentice obeyed, the line between his brows deepening to a severe trench. The Force seemed…. _scarred. _As though ravaged by a deep and conscious malice, tattered and shredded about them by invisible claws. The young Jedi felt his flesh crawl; though whether this was from a stray arachnid or the impalpable hand of evil stroking along his spine, he could not say.

Qui-Gon forged ahead, instinct guiding him toward the nearest terminal where they might find information, or a map. They reached the end of the long circuitous hall. Lift doors loomed before them, polished gates, uniform and unmarked, offering no advice.

"Master!" The indicator lights flashed' in a heartbeat, the Jedi were back down the passage and around a corner.

The tramp of feet and a surge of warning in the Force told them that the night guards had been sent to investigate the inexplicable malfunction of the automated security system. Qui-Gon silently pointed down the corridor, and they retreated, all the way to the original corridor, that in which they had found the pressure canisters.

"They're coming," Obi-Wan hissed. Surely a fight now would ruin any hope of locating Tahl? Or escaping themselves?

In answer, the tall Jedi withdrew his rebreather from a belt pouch, and with a sharp gesture, commanded his Padawan to do the same. They clamped the oxygen cycling devices between their teeth, and Qui Gon's saber blazed out of its hilt, thrumming ominously in the sterile passageway. Its green blade plunged into one of the silver capsules standing against the wall, and immediately a sickly white vapor burst from its confines, to billow and swell along the floor, snaking around the corner and into the adjacent hall, where footfalls stopped, shuffled, and began a stumbling and panicked run. Groans and choking noises followed.

Obi-Wan looked at his mentor, appalled. The tall man tapped the label of the pressure chamber: _praetoxis – _harmful, but not deadly, often used for brutal mob control. There was no time for debate or regret; a hand on his shoulder urged him to move, to follow in the Jedi master's wake as they picked their way among the unconscious men, past the adjacent corridor and into the open lifts.

Once safely inside, they removed the breathing apparatus.

"It was necessary," Qui Gon said, holding his student's doubtful gaze steadily. "We can discuss it later. For now, I need you focused on our task. It will not be a simple matter to leave this place undetected, once we liberate Tahl. Promise me now that you will obey my orders without question."

An unsavory promise. Qui-Gon's hand stretched out , fingers brushing the length of plait hanging over Obi-Wan's right shoulder. "Padawan."

"I give you my word, master."

"Without hesitation."

"Yes, master."

The lift doors, opened, issuing them into the guard room, a spacious chamber lined with data terminals and control consoles for the security system. "Here we are," the tall Jedi grimly observed. "Quickly."

* * *

"She's there." Qui-Gon Jinn thrust one finger into the shimmering depths of the holoprojected schematic, his grey eyes hardening with adamantine resolve, his Force presence steeling into a hard-edged lucidity. There was no label or indication given in the diagram, and yet Obi-Wan had no doubt that the Jedi master spoke with absolute certainty.

"That's not too far from here, master. We can reach that hall easily, through this connecting passage."

Qui-Gon peered at the slowly rotating map. "Our difficulty is not finding her, but effecting an escape. Obi-Wan: you must get down to this transport hangar." He pointed to a wide docking bay situated in the lowest level, almost a basement built into the rock foundations on which this edifice rested. "Use the lift. You'll have to commandeer the cargo transport – the one which carried us here. Do you recall how to override an ignition coding sequence?"

The Padawan exhaled slowly, before nodding his assent. "I can handle it." With Tahl's life – and possibly their own – at stake, his determination would have to carry him past any doubt. There was no acceptable alternative.

His teacher was far too preoccupied to trifle with his apprentice's momentary lapse in confidence.

"Good. I'll get Tahl, then cut an exit through this wall, here. At my signal, you need to pilot that ship to this point, with the boarding ramp down. There won't be time for any errors; if the automated security precautions and the numbers of night guards below are to be taken as any measure, we will meet significant oppostion once an alarm is sounded."

"I understand, master." In fact, a trickle of unease at the back of his mind declared that their presence had already been detected, their lease on freedom already swiftly expiring.

"Go quickly, and be ready. May the Force be with you."

A brief squeeze of his shoulder, and Obi-Wan was ushered into the lift. The carriage rattled as it descended; and then it stopped altogether, the interior lights flickering into darkness. His heart skipped. Someone had disabled the building's major power systems as an emergency lock-down procedure. His saber thrummed bright in the close space, skillfully carving a circle through the floor. The disc of molten-edged metal plummeted down and clattered to the shaft's distant base.

Obi-Wan fixed his cable to the hand rail and dropped through his custom-made exit, rappelling smoothly to the bottom of the dark pit. A burst of Force energy pried the heavy double doors for this lowest level open, issuing him into the maintenance hangar, as planned.

Two ceiling mounted security cannon pummeled him with blaster fire the instant he had crossed the threshold. By now such exercises were child's play to him; and he was on that account to be excused if he deflected the unremitting and deadly assaukt with an extra jaunty flourish or two, smugly rebounding the last four shots straight into the weapons themselves, reducing them to slag and sparking ruin.

A klaxon wailed somewhere overhead. Qui-Gon hadn't been joking about their limited time. The Padawan dashed for the clunky cargo transport, its hull still cooling from re-entry, rippling mirages texturing the air about its dampers and aft thrusters. The ramp lowered at a wave of his hand, and in the next breath he was through the hold and into the cockpit, yanking the access panel off the console with his heart in his throat.

This had to be done correctly, or this vessel would be grounded until the fried mainframe circuits could be replaced. Mechanical engineering was not his strong suit, much as higher mathematics, farming, and _staying out of trouble_ were not. His fingers trembled slightly as they tore at recalcitrant wires, crossed and recrossed, wheedled the surly drive override into compliance.

A ready light. He punched the uptakes, releasing his tightly held breath as the ship came to spluttering life beneath him. He perched at the edge of the pilot's seat, hands lightly gripping the yoke and throttle, mentally counting down the precious seconds, the trickling sand of time, as he waited in exquisite expectation of Qui-Gon's signal.

* * *

The heavy reinforced door slammed open before him, without even his conscious volition. The Force roiled around him, thundering through the plenum in endless towering waves, his _need_ to find her a rising storm, a black cloud gathered behind the high peaks of his self-discipline, mountains eroding and crumbling to dust beneath the sheer weight of grief – of _pain – _of fear. Fear of loss.

Qui Gon let it pour through him, endless, and yet the dark-edged power did not abate, but welled limitless in his blood, in his breath. Tahl.

"Tahl."

She was there…. bound, and…. vulnerable, weak, naked…

A primordial howl of anger tried to rip past his clenched teeth. He banished it. _I am Jedi. _ His cloak was in his hands, his head bowed, as he covered her marred body, her perfect flawless body, emaciated, honey-gold bleached to a sickly pallor, bruises mottling what should be pristine, pure – what he should not see – what she –

"Qui Gon."

He _tore_ her shackles apart, _crushing_ them, his shaking wrath released, exiled, pushed away, into the Force, where it mangled the bands into ruin.

A hand stirred and reached for him.

He could not speak. Her fingers were small, weak, brittle between his hands. He kissed their tips. What had happened here? Fury surged and ebbed, fighting the iron control of his will. A foreign shadow lurked, menacing, at the edge of his mind, and he dispelled it, cursing softly.

"Qui -?"

And her _eyes! By the Force, by the love of -! _ The twin pools of molten gold had been dimmed, their light faded, their glory veiled. The Force shattered and reformed between them, memory and present horror mingling into an unbearable shrilling tension. His tears dropped on the blank and staring orbs, but brought no healing.

Her hands sought his face, and traced over his nose, his eyes and cheekbones, brushed feather-light over his beard, his lips. "Oh, Qui…"

"I'm getting you out of here."

Tahl panted for enough breath to speak.. "What are you… doing? I said…. send team to… Telos."

Telos? "Obi Wan and I have come for you first."

Her head rolled back. "No….," she moaned. "Telos, Qui. My mission…. Arbor…"

"Hush." He would be damned to the lowest Sith hell before he abandoned _Tahl_ in favor of _duty –_ and he would shout this out atop the Temple's highest spire, and stand condemned before the entire Council, too, before his heart retracted that grave irrefutable error, before he bent his conscience beneath such a yoke as this impossible demand.

A klaxon sounded – nearer, this time – and the tramp of footfalls reverberated in the passageway directly overhead. His intrusion had been discovered.

There was .. medical?.. equipment scattered through out the gleaming, soulless room, this… this _rat cage_ in which she had been imprisoned. Bright with fury, with an outrage bleeding into outright loathing, his saber blade made short work of it all- leaving molten scars across counters, tables, shelves, wicked instruments. This was a chamber which would never be used again to inflict… such…

"Qui."

They were coming. And he knew, with a sickening lurch beneath his ribs, that he _must_ leave before any living being drew nigh. The opposite wall was his next target; the green blade sank through insulation and structural support, carving a wide circle. He kicked it through, the gaping hole in the building's wall no smaller than that puncturing his heart.

In the raging currents, the wild fluctuation in the Force as he met and subdued wave upon wave of inner enemies, hordes of yammering tempters, he could barely feel Obi Wan at all.

But a steady and serene light at the other end of their bond called to him, a lighthouse beacon cast across a tempestuous sea, and he held to it.

_Padawan! Now!_

He swept Tahl into his arms. She was a burden less than weightless, a burden too great to bear. She drooped limply in his arms and offered no sharp protest, no edged mockery.

Behind them, the rush of footfalls, of hoarsely shouted orders, grew louder… nearer.

He stood upon the threshold of escape, clutching Tahl's trembling body to his chest.

_Now, Obi-Wan!_

* * *

Nothing…. Nothing… a breathtaking moment of dread: what if Qui Gon had been apprehended? Or mistaken about Tahl's location? Or somehow, unaccountably, unable to communicate ? Obi-Wan quelled the thousand dark protestations of his imagination, breathed in supernal calm. The Force. The present moment. His task.

_Now! _

Qui-Gon's mental shout bleared sensation into mist, so overriding was the raw _need _ behind this injunction. Obi-Wan punched the ungainly stolen spacecraft through the hangar's cavernous overhang and sped at a dangerously low altitude around the perimeter of the towering edifice, a colossal block of cold greenish stone, unalleviated by window or ornament. He raced for the ordained rendevous, for Qui Gon…

There!

He slowed, hugged the wall, scraping one wing against the stretch of harsh stone with a wailing shriek, and slowed… just enough…

Qui Gon leapt onto the boarding ramp amid a hailstorm of blaster fire, wild shots glancing off the ship's hull, disspipating in the cold night air, firework festoons of red and trailing orange.

Obi-Wan slammed the ramp shut and laid on speed, flying as recklessly as any of the multitudinous pilots he had ever maligned and cursed for their folly-driven temerity, climbing steadily for the skies, the clouds, and the stars beyond.


	6. Chapter 6

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

* * *

They blasted straight through the solar system, and halfway to the next, in one short lightspeed blur, pulling abruptly out of hyperspace before they had reached the terminus of any recognized jump route. The shuttle coughed and bucked as it reverted, objecting to the inexpert management of its hyperdrive. Hidden in the open, in the vast stretches of emptiness between stars,floating dead in a sea of utter cold, they were unlikely to be found by any trace system.

Obi-Wan released the controls and exhaled. The ship drifted, the grav generator fluctuating subtly as the power currents evened out. The ship's axis seemed to reorient itself, pendulum-like, and then settle into a definite pattern, so that _down_ was vaguely deckward but with a slight twist to starboard, as though they listed drunkenly in space.

He found his balance and went aft, unsure what their next step might be.

Qui Gon was still with Tahl, who huddled beneath his cloak, lost in its soft drapes.

"..Telos," she was saying, voice rasping with a tired insistence.

Qui-Gon shook his head and uttered some response in his low and mellifluous tones. Tahl stirred, fretfully, her hands fisting in his tunic's wide sleeves.

Obi-Wan watched, brows beetled, lower lip worried between his teeth, as Qui Gon's fingers gently, slowly, traced over Tahl's eyes, down her cheeks. His face lowered until his lips brushed her forehead. She murmured something else to him, and then they were still, as though time had stopped, casting them like bronzium statues in some decorative garden.

The Padawan took a step backward, sensing, or guessing, that he should not – that –

"Obi-Wan."

"Master! I – should we set course for Coruscant, or… Telos?"

The tall man stood with fluid grace, all trace of emotion swept beneath his façade of implacable calm. Only a slight frown, a mere contraction of his eyes at their corners, a thinning of his mouth. He looked down at his apprentice sourly. "Master Uvain needs the healers at the Temple," he declared.

Obi-Wan stepped aside, allowing the Jedi master to proceed him into the cockpit. "She said Telos," he quietly replied, addressing Qui-Gon's back.

The tall man's shoulders squared, but he did not turn around. "And _I _ said Coruscant, Padawan." He slipped into the pilot's chair and began punching coordinates into the navigational system.

Obi-Wan moved forward and took the co-pilot's station.

"Do not say it," Qui-Gon warned.

"I didn't say anything!" his apprentice objected, posture stiffening.

"You were going to." The nav computer whirred and blinked, calculating the jump sequence. "And this is no time for disrespect."

The young Jedi flushed, and his hand went to his saber's hilt, the clean resonance of its crystal singing through him, and with it a strange, emotionless certainty. He took a deep breath. "With respect, master –"

"_Obi-Wan."_

But he had vowed obedience, not sycophancy; respect, not flattery. "With _respect,_ should we not heed Master Uvain's words? She has already sacrificed much for the sake of her mission. Surely we cannot abandon the duty she cannot fulfill."

The look this earned him choked off the next words in his throat. Qui-Gon closed his eyes briefly, but when he opened them, their customary warmth was lacking. "She will die if she does not receive help soon. I can feel it. Do you wish to fulfill this _duty_ at the cost of a fellow Jedi's life? That is nothing I have ever taught you."

Obi-Wan inhaled shakily and glanced back through the open hatchway. "Master, I did not… I meant only that –"

"There is a living being – a woman – your _friend - _ aboard this ship, suffering, and in need of care. Yet you place a reconnaissance mission, with no certain outcome, above that need? Where is your compassion, Padawan?"

_Compassion_ was twisting his innards into melting knots, wringing his soul until unshed tears threatened to burst the dams of self-control – _compassioin _ bade him heed the dying woman's repeated, urgent command. Obi-Wan stared, stunned and humiliated, at a loss for words.

"That's better," Qui Gon sighed, easing the Force even as he did so, brushing against his apprentice's mind through their bond.

Obi-Wan withdrew from the contact.

"You are young," the Jedi master said heavily. "In time, you will learn. We are going to Coruscant."

"Yes, master." He bowed his head, bruised and defeated. _Telos,_ the Force chanted in his heart. _Telos._

"I need to meditate," Qui-Gon said at last, dismissing him with a weary nod of the head toward the passenger hold.

And that was a slap across the face; for to be purposefully excluded from the master's meditation was a rejection of the teaching bond itself, a withholding of vital trust. Reeling inwardly from the blow, Obi-Wan stumbled his way to the rear compartment, and Tahl.

* * *

"Obi Wan." Her voice was weak, a mere whisper, but beneath the pain there lingered a trace of her warmth, her living spark. He held out a hand to grasp at the fingers proferred him and sank to his knees beside the inset passenger bunk where she lay, wrapped in Qui Gon's cloak, dwarfed by its voluminous folds.

"Master Uvain," he half-hiccuped, and then clamped down hard before he displayed unbecoming emotion.

One of her hands wrapped itself about his, as though to comfort, while the other shakily rose to trace the contours of his face. "Shush, Padawan, release it into the Force."

The Force was rife with Qui-Gon's displeasure, so how would this palliate his unwitting offence?

"I- we're headed back to Coruscant, but it might take a while. Hours. Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"

Tahl's haggard face was briefly lit by a wry smile. "You should have left me behind. It's almost too late."

"No!" His horror at this suggestion was almost equal to Qui Gon's…and yet… "I know we should have, master, I know it would be the right choice, but… I can't."

"Oh, child," Tahl sighed, her alarmingly blank and lifeless eyes closing. "You're as bad as he is."

"I heard – what you said about Telos, master. I could go, perhaps. If it's urgent. I could –"

"No," she smiled, painfully. Her grip on his hand tightened. "She's too much… not alone, you couldn't."

She? Who was "she"?

Tahl's exhalaton was a half-groan. "Zan Arbor," she muttered. "Arbor Foundation. I told Qui., that stubborn gundark… Obi -Wan."

"I'm here."

She opened her eyes, but the milky film coating their once-glowing depths was like a funerary shroud wended about her Light. She saw nothing. "Talk to him… for me. There's a meeting… on Telos… all of them, in one place. …should go. Now."

Miserable, he nodded. But what good would his feeble protestations do in the face of Qui Gon's obstinate resolve? He had as much chance of swaying the Jedi master's mind as he did of thawing Hoth. But for Tahl, he would try. Even though _there is no try._

He would do what he must. "I will," he promised, peering into her empty eyes.

Reaching out a hand, pressing it against her cold forehead, he sent as much of the Force's buoyant light as he could into her body, and then concentrated further, willing her to drop gently over the edge of awareness into a healing sleep, but his latter effort was rebuffed, a softly luminous wall pushing against his imposition, effortlessly resisting his feeble command.

"Oh," he said, surprised.

Tahl's grip on his other hand tightened. "It's my body that's broken, young one, not my _spirit._ I can still give you a run for your credits, Padawan."

He smiled then, blinking away burning moisture. Tahl Uvain was still a Jedi master, even blinded, even broken, her connection to the Force unwavering no matter the depredations wrought upon her physical form.

"I'm sure Qui Gon needs your help in the cockpit," she whispered, her words trailing off into an incoherent slur.

He was old enough to know this meant she wished for privacy, that while he remained, duty would compel her to offer _him_ comfort and guidance. Tahl was as stubborn as Qui Gon Jinn, in her own way, and this too was a small consolation, though the knowledge that his help would be refused left him with a tight and biter knot in his chest

"Master?" But Tahl made no answer. Her breath rose and fell, and her hand went limp in his. Obi-Wan placed it at her side and withdrew again, only to find that Qui Gon had been lingering in the open hatchway.

"Master." He bowed, and looked anywhere but the Jedi master's face.

The tall man sighed. "Well? You've been commissioned to persuade me. Shall we discharge that obligation now?"

The Padawan glanced at the sleeping woman' face, and then at the cockpit. Qui-Gon nodded, and they slipped back over the threshold.

* * *

"Master," Obi-Wan began in a hushed voice. "I'll go myself. I can manage. It's what she wants – the mission needs to be finished. She must have been on the verge of discovering something important. About Arbor Foundation, and Offworld."

"Nonetheless," Qui Gon replied sternly, "We are headed to Coruscant."

"You can drop me off at the next spaceport. I'll find a way to Telos, and infiltrate this meeting. I… I'll need a team to come later. To extract me."

The tall man's eyebrows rose. "Brave, but foolish. I won't send you to your death any more than I will leave Tahl to hers."

Obi-Wan balled his hands in to fists and then deliberately uncurled them. "Then we'll call for another team to pick her up, and we'll go together. The mission comes first."

This suggestion was met with chill disapprobation. "Do not lecture me about the mission, Padawan."

"Why does it have to be _you?"_ the young Jedi burst out, the image of Qui-Gon and Tahl frozen in tender vignette dancing before his eyes. "Attachment is _forbidden!"_

Silence. Qui-Gon's gray eyes flashed.

"Do you recall the promise you made to me earlier?" he demanded, in a dangerously quiet tone.

His apprentice swallowed. _Obedience without question or hesitation._ "Yes, I do."

The Jedi master's expression hardened. "You will set course back to the shipping station, where we will transfer to the Republic shuttle. You will contact the Council and inform them of our imminent arrival on Coruscant, and the need for healers to meet us at the docking bay. You will pilot us back and notify me when we arrive. I will stay with Master Uvain, whose well-being is the first and only priority for this mission now. And there will not be another word spoken on this matter. Is that clear?"

"_Yes,_ master."

Obi Wan watched the Jedi master withdraw, maintaining the stipulated silence. And to think that mere hours ago, they had been _bantering_ about their mutual confinement in a small space. At this moment, there could not possibly be enough distance between Qui Gon Jinn and his Padawan.

* * *

It was Yan Dooku who answered the transmission to the Council.

"Padawan Kenobi," the silver haired Jedi master greeted him, his blue hologram wavering over the projector plate. "I assume that Master Jinn and you have met with success in your endeavor?"

Obi-Wan affirmed this with a small nod. "Yes, Master Dooku. I need to request a healer's team to meet us upon arrival. I am forwarding our nav trajectory and estimated arrival time."

Dooku appeared unmoved. "You have located Master Uvain?"

"She will need care, urgently. We've extracted her and are returning to the Temple as speedily as possible."

One of Dooku's brows twitched upward. "And her investigation?"

A chill crept up the Padawans' spine. "Must be aborted."

There was a moment's hesitation, in which the Sentinel considered his interlocutor gravely. "You are aware that certain special privileges obtain where a classified operation is involved? Master Uvain was, for better or for worse, meddling in an affair currently under investigation by the Sentinels. I need to know the details of her mission." Grudgingly, he added, "She may have made startling progress."

Obi-Wan shifted uneasily. "You will have to interview her, Master Dooku. It is not my place to communicate such information."

Dooku scowled at him. "That is unfortunate. Where is Master Jinn, Padawan?"

"He is otherwise occupied."

Even across the parsecs, Yan Dooku could flash freeze the very Force with a single piercing look. His blue image glanced down, possibly studying the text-only coded transmission, containing their coordinates and itinerary. "I see. We shall speak later."

"I'll give him your message, master."

Dooku held up one elegant hand. "You misunderstand, Padawan. _You and I_ shall speak later."

Taken aback, Obi-Wan bowed his head. Dooku was a member of the Council, and a veteran Sentinel. "Yes, master."

"Good." With a coolly assessing flick of his eyes down the length of his aristocratic nose, Yan Dooku ended the transmission in a curt snap of light.

Obi-Wan settled back in the pilots seat with a sigh and engaged the drives.

* * *

"You were cruel to him," Tahl accused.

Qui Gon grasped her hand between his own. "Don't speak," he implored her. "You need to save your strength."

"I'll expend my last strength how I please," Tahl scoffed. "Besides, I'm not with the Force _yet."_

"Tahl, please…"

"He offered to go to Telos by himself, Qui."

"I heard him. Telos can wait."

Tahl stirred, her head lolling back. Qui Gon's hands moved to her shoulders, the jut of bone tangible beneath the sliding cloth of his cloak. "Ah… _Qui Gon.."_

Their foreheads rested together. The wave of pain crested and subsided, leaving them panting in unison. The Force wept, and they crouched close within it, sheltered under the scant protection of hope, of the unfulfilled promise that lay dormant between them.

"He doesn't deserve you," Tahl muttered, perspiration beading along her upper lip, a frantic pulse beating where the swell of her neck met her collarbone.

Qui Gon pulled the cloak's hem higher. "I don't-"

"He deserves _better,"_ she growled, clutching at his hand. "Promise me, you gundark, promise you won't … " But here words failed her.

"I will do what I must," he promised, softly, not even sure what this vow truly meant.

They were silent, together, for a long time.

* * *

Obi Wan turned the holocron over in his hands. Strangely enough, a small part of him now craved the release of pure abstraction, of order unsullied by motive and memory, choice and duty. Mathematics was a realm of pure truths, unmoving, unchanging certitudes. There was no suffering within it. Well, no suffering but his own. And that was far more acceptable than the distress now staining the Force with bitter tears.

He closed his eyes and hearkened back to the original problem, the one posed by Master Chopra, that which had so frustrated him. And the crystal opened, its delicate edges parting to reveal a new string of symbols, a different knot for him to unravel.

There, in the loneliness of the cockpit, sworn to an indefinite period of silence, he worked on the task as though it were a kata, a form of meditation.

* * *

Tahl's fevered dreaming washed over into Qui-Gon's, an inky spurt of memory darkening his limpid pool of awareness, banishing Light in the face of terrible fact. He gasped, even as the dream-Tahl gasped, their two souls twined and writhing as though one.

_Another jab, this time in a vein._

"_Jedi blood. I've done my research, you know. Midichlorians – it all comes down to microscopic life forms in the end. Bacta for healing, synthviruses for destruction, and midichlorians for power. It is science, not your so-called Force, which will tip the scales of balance in this galaxy. And by that, I mean myself."_

"_The Force is knowledge, all knowledge."_

_A contemptuous snort. "Since you won't tell me why you were here in the first place, I'll assume you were donating yourself to the cause of that knowledge. This is the latest prototype for a conditioning implant. We had minimal success with electro-pulsor models, so I've developed a biotic agent."_

"_A parasite." Fear crawled in the corners of the room, squirmimg piles of it, rotten and hungry. There is no fear. There is the Force. _

"_Symbion," the hard-faced female corrected. "It colonizes the cerebral cortex, in theory. Of course, I need a sentient being as a test subject."_

_There is no fear. There is serenity, there is the Force._

_Pain, as droid appendages seized her head; burning fire spreading up through sinuses, deep, deep within, until the woman and the room and sensation blurred into unending agony, and even her heaving stomach, the wracking cramps that followed, were nothing but shadows playing on the wall, echoes of this inner hell. _

_The Force screamed with her, but it did nothing to end her suffering._

Qui Gon jolted upright, one hand clenched about his saber hilt, the other fisted in his own cloak. Tahl lay shivering and delirious upon the ship's bunk. He spread the cloak over her sprawling limbs, eyes averted.

"Tahl." He laid one hand against her cheek. "Tahl, come back. Be here, in the present."

She surfaced groggily, blind eyes seeking him in the clotted dark.

He let the tears fall outwardly, for at least then she could not see them.

* * *

The holocron danced in midair, and unfolded yet again, opening another layer within the first, a flower blossoming in discrete stages. Words appeared.

_Understanding brings sympathy; but sometimes sympathy must precede understanding. A compassionate heart is often most ruthless in logic; for as the heart widens, so wisdom deepens._

He snapped it shut with a nudge of the Force, perplexed by the advice but calmed by the sustained exercise of strict rationality. Compassion surely had nothing at all to do with interstitial matrices, but as a Jedi he would strive to infuse even his _calculations_ with willing service of the Force, if that's what it took to survive Master Chopra's reign of mathematical terror.

The nav computer blipped, signaling their proximity to Ossk 34, and the shipping yards where the much faster Republic shuttle was docked. He switched the stolen ship to manual control, and began the gentle descent, heart still aching, but his mind clear and steady, resolved.

When they arrived at the Temple, he would speak to Dooku.


	7. Chapter 7

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

* * *

The healers were waiting, as promised, just inside the arched threshold of the south-facing docking bay. Qui-Gon was down the shuttle's ramp, Tahl huddled in his arms, well before the cooling cycle was complete for the atmospheric drives.

Obi-Wan shut down the remainder of the ship's systems, leaving the full downcycle and maintenance check to the flight crew droids, before following the Jedi master out. It was good to be back – even under such harried conditions, the Temple offered the welcome of home. He paused at the base of the ramp, watching Qui-Gon swiftly accompany the grav-stretcher bearing Tahl to the healers' ward. Master Ben To Li was beside him, listening intently to his narrative; and Bant Eerin lingered just behind the procession, her large Mon Calamari eyes seeking Obi Wan's even as she was pulled, perhaps unwillingly, toward the interior exit.

He dredged up a sunny smile for her and kept it fixed in place until her concern melted into relief and her pale turquoise healer's tunic had disappeared into the passage beyond.

And that was that. Qui-Gon, of course, had not spared him a sidelong glance. He reached for the Jedi master across their bond, but was in no way surprised to find the effort futile. It would take an apology and perhaps more to mend that rift; he knew from experience how volatile and tenuous such a connection could be when either or both parties were… disturbed.

"Ah. There you are, Padawan."

He was not so isolated as he had supposed; Yan Dooku's graceful prowl across the decks had all the confident leisure of a stalking colwar. His dark cloak rippled in the thermal draft off the ship's hull.

"Master Dooku." No less than a deep and formal bow would suffice to greet one so respected within the Order, the teacher of one's own teacher.

The silver haired Jedi's aquiline features remained inscrutably composed as he studied his young companion, probing gently with the Force. Obi-Wan tightened his shields, in no mood for such subtle examination. If he wanted to be _dissected, _ he would have accompanied his master back to the healers' wing.

A corner of Dooku's mouth twitched, signifying wry amusement. "Dine with me," he invited, without preamble or explanation. "You are, naturally, famished."

That was true; his hand strayed to his comlink, reflexively seeking Qui-Gon's permission.

"Tsk, boy, He knows how to contact you. I daresay you are aren't needed at the moment. Come and eat before you collapse. I should like to speak with you privately, as I said earlier."

"I – very well. Thank you."

A gracious lift of the brows, a regal sweep of the hand, and Dooku was ushering him not into the concourse adjoining this hangar, nor into one of the lifts at its far end, but to a row of smaller aircars reserved for use within the city. He almost objected that he was not allowed to leave the Temple without a master's permission- before collecting his wits and merely slipping into the passenger side of the nearest vehicle. Dooku offered him a tight smile, waved an imperious hand at the requisitions droid, and piloted the speeder through the bay doors with a smooth precision.

* * *

Ben To was very much occupied with Tahl; and so the unpleasant task fell to a mere apprentice, a Graan by the name of Parr Acel, recently assigned to the healer's ward.

"Master Jinn," the gentle lad addressed the Jedi pacing restlessly across the confines of the tranquil waiting area, "Master Li has asked me to remind you that you are not needed, and that your unrest is likely to disturb our other patients. With respect."

Qui-Gon turned on the boy; but the Graan's three eyes had such a soft and fearful amber light, one so _different_ from the blue fire that so often kindled in his own Padawan's gaze – so _compassionate, _ so attuned to the Living Force – that he was moved.

"Forgive me," he muttered, recognizing the truth of this mild reprimand. "I will withdraw. But, Padawan Acel?"

"Yes, master?"

"Would you ask Master Li to contact me… should anything change. Should he need any help, I would do whatever is in my power."

The young healer nodded, misunderstanding his intention, mistaking it for the same devotion which any Jedi might feel toward any one of his suffering brethren, interpreting the offer as one of universal, undifferentiated generosity. Qui-Gon bowed, then, and quietly withdrew so that his presence might not stain the serenity of the Halls of Healing.

He found an empty corridor and paced there, instead.

* * *

Obi Wan took in his new surroundings – careful not to overtly stare – as the host droid led them through the artfully arranged dining nooks toward a secluded alcove in the back – one with a panoramic view of Coruscant's spectacular entertainment district, decked out in its gaudiest nighttime finery.

Dooku watched him, amused. "You disapprove?"

Jolted back to awareness of his immediate surroundings, the Padawan blushed slightly. "It's very… ostentatious," he admitted.

Dooku sat at the sumptuously laid table and poured wine. For both of them. "Ah. But merely because we do not have possessions, it does not follow that we must be… uncivilized," he observed, replacing the decanter with unhurried elegance.

Obi-Wan frowned, a little. "Some might say such decadence represents the slow decay of civilization."

The silver haired master lifted his cut-crystal glass in salute. "Touché. However, it so happens that this establishment is owned by a distant cousin of mine; he takes it as quite the personal insult if I do not give him custom at least once a year. And so, you see, it is also possible for luxury to be an occasion of civility."

The young Jedi sipped at the wine in his glass. It was like darkest velvet, sweet and bitter at once, slipping seductively down his throat and warming his chest in a way the Force did not. He decided to forego any more. "What did you wish to speak to me about, Master Dooku?" he asked quietly.

The elder Jedi appeared to be perusing the menu; but the Force said otherwise. "I was about to ask you the identical question," he drawled, grey eyes still flittering idly over the evening's gourmet offerings.

Very well. Obi-Wan might be a junior Padawan, and very much out of his comfort zone in this milieu of lavish self-indugence, but he was also a trained duelist, and he did not allow his sparring partner to catch him off guard. His counterattack was swift. "Yes, master. I was wondering why the Sentinels were not aware of Master Uvain's capture, or did nothing to help her, if they have been investigating Arbor Foundation all this time?"

Yan Dooku set the menu down and studied him over the rim of his glass. "That is the question, isn't it," he replied enigmatically.

"What do you mean?"

"How did Qui-Gon discover the Foundation's approximate location?"

The Padawan stiffened. "What do you mean?"

Dooku scoffed at this. "You are not unintelligent, Kenobi. I know that your master put Tahl Uvain up to this covert operation, under the Council and the Sentinels' noses. And I know that he must have had access to classified records, as well. How did he manage such a thing?"

"I managed it," Obi-Wan told him, brashly. "Master Syfo-Dyas – before he turned – left a _stink_ in the Force. But it is not my place to reveal another Jedi's shortcomings, so I shan't elaborate."

Dooku narrowed his eyes appraisingly and took a deep draught of his wine. "You do not disappoint," he smiled wanly. "You should have been a Shadow. You would be brilliant, though, ah, perhaps given to needlessly dramatic gestures."

The young Jedi's hackles rose. "I still don't understand why the Sentinels failed to intervene, or even to discover Master Uvain's plight. And I wonder what they will do _now?"_

Dooku unfolded his napkin and spread it upon his lap, thoughtfully. "Yes, that is what we must decide, is it not?"

* * *

"Jinn."

He turned, and discovered that BenTo Li had hunted him down. The healer's black and silver streaked hair was drawn back off his face, and lines of exhaustion carved deeply into forehead and around the eyes. It had been a hard few hours for him.

"How is she?'

Ben To spread his hands. "She is gravely damaged," he said. "I need to know as much as you can tell me about this facility. Can you give us any clue about her condition?"

He closed his eyes. This was a thing locked deep inside his heart already, chained and barricaded behind shields and purposeful forgetfulness, lest it set fire to the piled kindling of his …attachment. Yet, to help Tahl, he would unlock his own pain. He sighed and sank onto the bench set along one wall.

"It was an experimental laboratory. I did not witness anything done to her. When I arrived, she was weak, and blinded. And bruised in many places. And … I felt her once or twice during our journey, and even before that."

Ben To sat beside him, fingers loosely clasped between his knees. "My friend, anything you can tell me might help."

Qui-Gon exhaled. "Some sort of biotic agent – injected into the cranial cavities… I think sinuses, behind the eyes…" His chest clenched, and he fought down a wave of anger so fierce that his stomach rebelled at it. Not since Xanatos ha he come so close to losing control. "Forgive me, Ben To. I am not in full possession of myself."

He could feel the healer's eyes upon him. But no sharp retort met his confession. "Did your Padawan see this as well?"

Qui-Gon sighed. "I don't know."

BenTo stood. "I am sorry to cause you pain. But I think I understand now."

He wished to ask more, to barge back into the Halls and demand to see Tahl for himself, to touch her with his hands, to hold her presence within his own, never to be relinquished into dark and pain again… but he was Jedi.

He sat, and waited, in silent misery.

* * *

"Well, that settles the matter nicely," Dooku remarked, signaling to the waiter that it might collect their plates. Dessert had been incomparable, and sticky. Even Obi-Wan's adolescent appetite was more than sated.

He paled a little at the thought of Qui Gon's reaction to the proposed plan of action, but quickly thrust the thought aside. Both he and his master would obey the Council's injunction. They were Jedi, and they existed to serve the good of the galaxy at large.

Dooku settled the bill; and then stood. "Shall we?"

Outside, waiting upon the railed balcony where valet droids ferried air cars and hover-trams to and fro, the Jedi master spoke again. "The Council summons will come early; I suggest you rest well."

"Yes, Master Dooku."

Their vehicle was duly delivered, and they climbed in, a warm night breeze lifting the hems of their cloaks, teasing at hair and faces. The Force held its tongue, neither approving nor condemning.

And Dooku piloted them away, back to the pristine white towers of the Temple.

* * *

"You need to retire, " Ben To Li chided.

"I cannot rest knowing that she suffers," Qui-Gon objected.

Ben To made a sour face and gestured him into a private office, waving the door closed. "She's asleep, for now. And I might point out that your spectacular pout does nothing alleviate anyone's suffering - and scandalizes my Padawans."

Qui-Gon brushed this aside. "Ben To," he addressed the cantankerous older Jedi, "I must know."

The healer released a disapproving sigh and waved him into a seat. "Very well, you obstreperous gundark. And when I've told you, you are leaving this ward, by force of arms if necessary."

Qui Gon raised a brow, but nodded.

Ben To fixed him with a grave look. "She was given a blood thinning agent, which explains the bruising, and she has lost an alarming percentage of her total blood volume. Since there are no wounds save a series of puncture marks, I assume this was via intravenous extraction. The thinning agent would reduce clotting and make samples easier to analyze and separate, so again I assume this was either severely misguided medical practice, or a form of fanatical research. Much more and she certainly would have perished. "

The Jedi master's jaw clenched. He reached for the tumultuous Force and held on with all his will. "Tell me the rest," he grated out.

"Against my better judgement, I shall," Ben To sighed. "Her nervous system – primarily the brain cortex, the optic nerves, and spinal fluid, has been contaminated with a biotic agent we have never seen, and which binds to living cells like a synth-virus. Her optic nerves are completely destroyed; and I expect eventually other major nerve pathways may fail."

"How long?"

Ben To smoothed his pointed beard. "With Force healing techniques, she may be able to stave off the inevitable for some number of years. Master Uvain is strong and determined. And we shall research this, as far as we are able. But still…. I am sorry. It is the will of the Force."

Qui-Gon did not speak.

Eventually Ben-To made to leave, clasping the other Jedi's shoulder gently in parting before he withdrew. "When you are collected, Master Jinn, I suggest you leave. The other patients."

The tall man nodded, speechless and defeated.

* * *

Having been delivered safely back to the Temple, and having bidden Master Dooku a good night with his thanks, Obi-Wan found himself unenthusiastic about the prospect of returning to quarters. He did not know whether Qui-Gon would be there or not; nor could he say whether the prospect of encountering his master again or of haunting the empty rooms of their abode, solitary but for his own thoughts, would be more unpalatable.

His steps turned toward the indoor arboretum, comfort and verdant sanctuary.

Despite his master's claims to the contrary, he _did_ feel the Living Force, and nowhere better than here, in the meditation gardens at the Temple's heart. There was a place – among his many favorites – that called to him especially tonight, and he sought its shelter without hesitation. Here, where a smaller waterfall tumbled over an artfully wrought lip of stone into a spreading pool below, he had once discovered a delightful hiding place. Then, the hollow behind the falls had seemed an enchanted cave; now of course, it was barely large enough to count as a hovel. He parted the curtain of water with a careful use of the Force, sending the glittering veils cascading to either side, leaving a space between, and jumped through, into the cool shadow behind. There was a dry ledge toward the back, one not soaked by the perpetual spray. He leaned into the gentle swell of the rock wall, facing the luminous tapestry of falling water and muted light, his face bathed in soft mist, his pale tunics and hands bedewed with moving light as the falls flowed and twisted into the placid waters beyond.

He closed his eyes and released all emotion.

Grief and anxiety tumbled, fluid, over his inner falls, pouring without cease into the serene and infinite pools of the Force. The torrent did not cease, but neither did the Force overflow. Its boundless depths received the unending cascade of bitterness, and sorrow, and weariness and smoothed them into vast abysses of light, of wisdom. There was a moment when he thought his self might tumble willingly over the precipice into those depths, and then another moment in which he knew he would not yet do so; the meditative trance wavered, a little, and he opened his eyes.

A dark shadow passed through the gleaming swath of water, emerging into the cave beside him. There was barely enough space for two, but the sweet-salt scent of Bant Eerin, clad in the odd leotard she donned for swimming, was as familiar and welcome as the hiding-place itself.

"Bant!"

The Mon Cal Padawan scooted into place beside him, her damp skin dripping all over his relatively dry tunics. She, and a few other Jedi of aquatic species, had permission to use the wider portions of the artificial river for a daily soaking; and while her human friends were not officially included in this exception to the rules, it would be untruthful to say that the regulations had never been flouted. Indeed, when they were all younger, it had been another rule observed more in the breach than the observance.

"I knew you were in here," she chided him. "I could _feel_ you, you chosski."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Bant, I didn't think there was anyone-"

She hushed him with a playful slap of her webbed hand upon his shoulder, dampening him further. "Silly. I don't care. I'm.. I'm off shift for now. I thought I would swim… you know."

He nodded. He knew, all too well. And he did not dare ask. Yet he had to know. "Bant… Master Uvain. Is she going to recover? Her eyesight, I mean, and… in general?"

In answer, Bant wrapped a dripping arm about his shoulders. "I wish you hadn't asked me that," she lamented.

"Tell me," he insisted, bracing himself for the blow. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on his knees.

"I'm not supposed to tell you/. Patients' privacy." Bant hesitated. "But she wouldn't care. I know .. well, I saw…"

"Bant, please." He could bear it, here beneath the shelter of the luminous falls, with the Force so close at hand.

"She's blind. Forever, even with implants. And .. well, as for the rest, ….. Master Li doesn't know. But it doesn't look good."

He took this like a Jedi. There was no emotion. "It is the will of the Force," he declared, manfully, looking up, gazing through the shifting and diaphanous layers of light, of falling rain, straining to see that far shore where there was only peace, only the Force.

He thought for a moment that he caught a glimpse of it – but then Bant shattered the vision, wrapping both arms around him and holding him tight, completely soaking his clothing. "It's all right," she said.

He thought he had already poured out his grief into the Force; but when his heart broke, another flood welled to take its place, and the softly weeping falls before them were joined by another. Bant stayed beside him for a long time.


	8. Chapter 8

Lineage V

* * *

Chapter 8

* * *

Obi Wan woke early – and with a start, momentarily forgetting how he had found his way into his present surroundings, and reacting with a sharp and instinctive revulsion. Then, as full wakefulness claimed him - the adrenaline surge subsiding into mere annoyance as he realized that he was not in fact a _prisoner, _ but merely a _guest - _ he cautiously slid to his feet and stretched.

Bant had set him up with a spare cot in the healer's ward the previous evening, somehow intuiting that he was reluctant to return to his own quarters.

The place was preternaturally silent at this hour; the corridors hushed. He slipped out of the small room where he had been closeted, noting that an ephemeral trace of BenTo Li's presence lingered in the Force, about the threshold- and then wondered sullenly whether Bant's kind offer last night had been more in the nature of a subliminal suggestion. Certainly his Mon Calamari friend had grown more cunning and subtle in her use of mind influence since the early days of her apprenticeship when he had been easily able to turn the tables on her, as it were.

Other matters preoccupied him now, however; his steps strayed down one corridor, and then carried him to a particular door. A light outside warned him not to disturb the occupant…. and yet…

The portal opened, seemingly of its own accord. "Well? You haven't come all this way to stare at the door, have you?" Tahl Uvain's voice was crisp, edged with a suppressed laughter.

He smiled and passed into the dimly lit chamber. Tahl's gaze missed him, skimming over his body and seeming to light on the wall behind him. But her outstretched hand and the smile curving her lips ameliorated the disorienting sensation of being invisible. "Obi Wan," she greeted him warmly. "What are you doing here so early?"

He let her clasp his hand and pull him down to perch on the edge of her cot. "I was in the neighborhood," he said. "…And I thought I might drop by."

Her smile faded. "You're angry at Qui." A pause, in which her free hand reached up to gently touch his face, outlining his features as though assuring herself that this was indeed him. "He deserves it, of course, but you must forgive. He's worried about me, the foolish man."

The Padawan drew back, fractionally, and Tahl's hand dropped. "He's attached," Obi Wan stated, bluntly. "You both are."

She merely tightened her grasp upon his other hand and exhaled slowly. "It is a difficult path, this which we tread. None of us has walked it without erring – not me, not Qui Gon, not even Master Yoda. Not even you, young one."

The imputation of pride hurt. He scowled, thankful that Tahl could not see it.

"I can still _see_ you," she retorted sharply. "Better than before, in some ways. I'm refusing implants, by the way. If this is what the Force has in store for me, I shall rise to the occasion. Now, what I want to know, is whether you and Qui Gon will do the same?"

"We are going to Telos," he informed her, boldly. "To arrest Zan Arbor."

She sat up. "That's not what your master told me."

Obi-Wan straightened his spine. "He hasn't yet heard the Council's mandate."

Blind eyes searched his face, unfocused. Tahl paled, and her mouth twisted in sudden realization. "That woman is dangerous. Promise me you won't depart for Telos in this frame of mind. You and Qui can't afford it. Obi-Wan – promise."

Why, he briefly wondered, did everyone seem bent on extracting promises from him? It was vexing. But he could no more refuse a heart-felt plea than he could break his oath – and that, in all likelihood, was why he was singled out for such burdens. "Yes, master," he sighed.

"You needn't be so ecstatic about it," Tahl grumbled.

"I shall endeavor to contain my enthusiasm," he dead-panned.

"That's my boy." She tilted her head, considering. "It's been nine months, you know. Your voice has changed – it's deeper."

"Is that bad?"

"Not at all," Tahl decided. "Why don't you sing for me?"

"What? Master Uvain, I do not-"

"Yes, you do, if you ever want to taste spicy djo and beans again. You _did_ come to succor a suffering invalid, did you not? Because I'm sure Master Li would be most disapproving if you came to aggravate me instead. He'll have you thrown out, or even worse, he'll find some creative means of exacting punishment." She waited until the full and awful implications had sunk in. "Now let me hear you: start with something sweet and melancholy, if you please."

He squirmed. "Master –"

"By the way, Qui Gon has a lovely voice. But I've wondered for a while now whether you might someday surpass him."

That was the clinching argument. The Padawan took a deep breath, and launched into whatever came first to mind – which, according to the elusive logic of random association, happened to be the tenor line from a Chandrilan motet. Then he canted happily away at one or two Vetruvian sun-hymns he had learned as an older initiate, and then gave voice to a very old Twi'Lek piece he had stumbled across in his study of the language; and finally, since his mischievous streak could not possibly be quashed any longer, he broke into a Phindian folk song taught him by the irrepressible Guerra Derrida, a simple tune set to rather off-color lyrics in a strange pidgin blend of Basic and native Phindian.

"That was very naughty." Tahl wagged a finger at him. "Shame on Qui Gon for teaching you such a thing."

"He's never heard it, master."

Tahl smirked. "And if you value your skin, he never will."

"Well?" After his extensive performance, he was more curious than ever to know where he ranked with respect to his mentor.

But Tahl merely laid back against the pillows. "It would be impolitic of me to pass judgment. However, I am well satisfied and you will be remunerated in your favorite edible currency, so soon as I have the strength."

Senior healer Ben To Li coughed, signaling his presence in the doorframe. "Who's regaling my patients with the _Lay of the Waylaid Lad?" _ he demanded, cantankerously. This is a medical ward, not a brothel. Oh! Kenobi…. I should have known. I won't even ask where in the galaxy you picked up that tasteless bit of doggerel."

Obi-Wan rose and bowed. "Master Jinn has broadened my horizons in many ways."

Tahl's lips parted in a small gasp of amusement or surprise; Ben To's bushy eyebrows arched upward. "The pair of you!" He snorted in exasperation. "I should have master and apprentice permanently banned from the Halls."

"Anything but _that,"_ the Padawan intoned.

"Scram, you wretched waif," the healer snorted. "Before I break my oath to _do no harm."_

The young Jedi wisely retreated, sparing Tahl one last impish smile before ducking out the door and neatly dodging one of the hovering medical droids as he fled up the passage and away.

* * *

Qui Gon Jinn stood impassively in the vestibule to the Council chamber, his hands folded into opposite sleeves, his penetrating gaze fixed upon the burnished doors leading into the circular room beyond, his mind barricaded behind impenetrable shields, luminous and flawless veils of tranquility. When his apprentice appeared, stepping quietly out of the lift at the antechamber's opposite end, he acknowledged the young Jedi's presence with little more than a lifted brow. It was rare to see his Padawan both impeccably groomed and perfectly alert at such an early hour, unless some forewarning had been issued. That the Council summons should have preceded this bright and tidy apparition by a mere fifteen minutes was a phenomenon that pushed the bounds of credibility.

"Why do I have the feeling that you knew of this summons well in advance of its issuance?" he inquired politely, avoiding eye contact.

Obi-Wan positioned himself a respectful pace behind his teacher, addressing the tall man's back as they faced the doors. "I have always been more attuned to the future than the present moment, master," he replied, tone even and subdued.

Qui-Gon was not deceived. A muscle in his jaw clenched. "Then I don't have to warn you about the substance of our conversation after this meeting."

"I look forward to it," his student answered, smooth as polished durasteel.

The Jedi master flirted with the notion of having said conversation in the dojo, without the trouble of employing words to make his point clear; but before he could weigh the relative advantages and drawbacks to this tempting idea, the doors slid open, and they stepped together into the tranquil circle of the Council masters.

It did not escape his notice that Yan Dooku's gimlet gaze flicked to Obi-Wan before sliding sideways to wait Yoda's pleasure. Qui Gon released a flare of irritation into the Force, uncaring whether anyone present sensed his mood or not.

Mace began, succinct and direct as always. "We are sending you on a pressing mission, " the Korun master declared. "To Telos."

Telos. Qui Gon's chin came up, fractionally. "This appertains to Arbor Biogenetic Foundation," he stated.

"Yes," Yoda chuffed. "Urgent, it is, that we send a team to continue Master Uvain's investigation. Authorized, it was not; but fruitful has it been. Strike while opportunity presents itself, we must."

Qui-Gon spared a sidelong glance at his Padawan, but Obi-Wan was infernally well-sheilded, and not looking his way, quite on purpose. "I am familiar with Telos," he said, "But not Arbor Foundation or its chief."

Mace dismissed this readily. "If Telos is hosting an important meeting, be assured that top government officials are involved, possibly some remnant of the Offworld organization. You are best qualified to deal with those interests."

Qui Gon nodded, eager now to have done with this meeting. "Our exact mandate?" he asked, impatiently.

Yoda's wide eyes slitted. He thrust a clawed hand at the two Jedi standing at the focus of the mosaic floor. "Collect information, first. Allies and conspirators, must Arbor have. Find for us who they are. If possible, arrest Arbor you will. Against her will, Master Uvain was held, and tortured. Crimes to be tried in a Republic court these are."

Qui-Gon's hand went to his saber hilt. "She won't escape," he promised, a cold wind rising within the Force. The Council stirred.

"This mission will be undertaken in conjunction with the Sentinels," Dooku interposed. "I shall accompany you, and Yarriss Moll will meet us on Telos. We are in possession of the planetary security codes for incoming craft."

So he was to be caught in a pincer between his Padawan's obstinacy and his former master's unwelcome oversight? Qui-Gon's nod of confirmation was a gesture of bare civility.

"We shall depart in one standard hour," Dooku continued, blithely.

"May the Force be with you," Mace added, ending the conference before any objections could be raised.

The tall man bowed, and stalked to the lift doors, heedless and indifferent whether he were followed by a second pair of footfalls or not. Once confined within the gleaming walls of the carriage, however, he turned upon his silent companion, not bothering to conceal his displeasure.

"I am impressed," he growled. "Manipulating a senior Councilor is a feat of conniving. I would add a bead to your braid, were it under other auspices."

He was gratified to see that familiar combative fire leap behind his apprentice's blue eyes. But no swift counterattack met his bitter words.

"I do not crave your recognition for this," Obi-Wan said evenly, mouth pressing into a thin line as though holding back any further reply.

Qui-Gon regarded the young man warily, seeing a stranger, a fierce and cunning opponent. "You are wise not to crave what I would not bestow."

Despite the acute mental shields raised between them, he felt the sting of those words across their muted bond. But even such a disdainful blow was not sufficient bait. Obi-Wan bowed, stiffly. "I respect your experience and skill, Master Jinn. I will not bandy words with you in a disrespectful fashion, lest I dishonor myself."

And that was unexpected, a step forward and a step backward at once. Qui Gon stared, seething at the implication that his approval was inconsequential, but seething more at the appellation _Master Jinn._

"I'll meet you in the hangar bay in one hour. Be ready," he ordered, coldly, sweeping out ahead of his Padawan, and not indulging in a backward glance.

_Brat. Insufferable brat._

He went straight to Tahl, heart aching.

* * *

"What has you up in arms?" Tahl demanded testily. "You're disturbing my blissful repose."

"He went over my head," Qui-Gon fumed, pacing fretfully back and forth across the tiny room's length.

"Who? Obi-Wan? For Force's sake stop _pacing, _ Qui. What's happened to you?"

He desisted and knelt by her bedside, eyes closing softly as her fingers traced over his face, and then came to rest on either side. "Forgive me."

"I'm dying, Qui. Don't you understand? Obi-Wan does."

He placed his hands atop hers, feeling the flutter of life beneath their soft skin, the defiant, vital thrumming in her blood. "What do you mean? He hasn't taken his mind off this damned meeting on Telos since we found you. He cares more for a _mission_ than for your well-being."

She made an impatient noise deep in her throat.. "_My_ mission. He's giving me that much as a gift. Don't let all my work go to waste – I would go myself, if Ben To wasn't holding me captive here."

Silence settled between them. "This is your wish," Qui-Gon murmured at last.

"Yes," Tahl sighed, still holding his face, her thumbs brushing over his closed eyes.

"This is… what you would have, before anything else."

She leaned closer, until it was her breath that brushed over his eyelids, ghosted along his skin. "Why do you begrudge me this?" she whispered. "It is what I wish for with all the life that remains within me."

Their fingers twined. "Tahl," he murmured, suddenly with her in a clan dormitory, in an initiate class, in the dojo among other Padawans, undercover on a touchy assignment, locked in debate in the Archives, watching the stars from the north spire… alone, in his quarters, talking long into the night…. "Tahl. I cannot give you this- this mission." It was not enough; it was a paltry, an insufficient and pale mockery of what she deserved, of what he would yield to her in another life, had they wandered a less demanding path..

"Then will you accept a gift instead?"

Their breaths mingled, parted, and joined again, and endless pattern, a silent chorus of acceptance and release, giving and taking.

"Attachment is forbidden," he protested, the Living Force roaring in his ears to drown out all such feeble objections.

"And that matters to you, now?"

He smiled, through tears, paying obeisance to the command of his heart, and accepting a gift more precious than that he bestowed. They exchanged no more spoken words, and only moments later, he found that the hour had already expired.

He left Tahl there, and with her a piece of himself.

* * *

Obi-Wan sat just behind the forward cockpit, tucked in against the portside bulkheads, ready and waiting as he had promised. Master Dooku was making last minute adjustments to the transponder beacon which would disguise them as a homecoming Telosian vessel; the elegant silver-haired master had merely nodded to him once before setting about his task, sublimely impervious to the tension humming in the Force between Qui-Gon and his Padawan.

The mathematical holocron popped open almost before he had cleared his mind of extraneous thoughts; oddly enough, it was easier to retreat into the realms of pure abstraction when present and sensory reality was so strife-ridden. He plunged into the next knotty calculation with a glad heart, embracing the momentary escape from uncertainty and confusion. And when he completed the complex operation successfully – perfectly, efficiently, like a mental kata – the tiny crystalline toy rewarded him in its customary manner, with unsolicited advice.

_Diligence begets excellence; excellence begets joy; and joy begets insight. Therefore, if you wish to understand, you must first be diligent, working in darkness toward a distant dawn._

He closed it and shoved it back in a pouch, sensing the looming thunderheads of Qui-Gon's approach. A minute later, the tall Jedi master's silhouette darkened the frame of the hatchway, and he stepped through the passenger hold into the cockpit, where he silently took the co-pilot's station.

A moment later he swiveled about to face his apprentice. "Obi-Wan," he began. "We should not depart in this … state of mind."

"Yes, master. I will not permit emotion to distract me during the mission. I give you my word." That was what he had promised Tahl Uvain, was it not? And certainly _one_ of them had best maintain Jedi calm in the face of this challenge.

Qui-Gon's grey eyes narrowed, perhaps sensing that the offer of _integrity_ was a mere deflection of his attempt at reconciliation. Certainly such perfect deference was a far departure from their normal impudent and teasing mode of interchange. The Force tautened between them yet further, the seeming truce a tympanum stretched tight over aching hollows, the places where humorous accord ought by rights to dwell.

The Jedi master drew in a breath to speak again, but Yan Dooku chose this moment to enter the cramped piloting space, sweeping past and between them both in a fluid ripple of dark cloak.

"If you gentlemen have no objection, I think we shall be on our way," he declared smoothly.

He lifted the shuttle out of the Temple hangar bay and into Coruscant's bright morning skies with the ease of long practice and natural talent, his piloting ability as lethally understated as his saber form. And they were, indeed, on their way.


	9. Chapter 9

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 9**

* * *

"It is a question worthy of dispute," Yan Dooku remarked, leaning back in the pilot's seat with one booted foot propped across the opposite knee. He flicked a wry glance at Qui-Gon Jinn. "Though perhaps some might object that such speculation is idle and based on the most unreliable of foundations."

The tall man smiled tightly. "The future is always in motion; what use is there in debating possible permutations of political influence? The Living Force is not subject to partisan loyalties."

Dooku's brows arched expressively. "Ah. Neutrality. Always a facile option, one making no demands upon honor or conscience."

Qui-Gon bristled.

"But Master Dooku," Obi-Wan protested. "As peacekeepers, Jedi must maintain neutrality in the face of pitched disputes. Surely the same principle applies?"

"I think not, Padawan. Neutrality in the context of two planetary factions is necessary, if one is to preserve objectivity and preserve the common peace. But neutrality in the case of civil war is dereliction of duty, a mere refusal to commit."

"A refusal to commit to either side of a foolish dichotomy?" Qui Gon retorted. "Such is better called wisdom."

"We are sworn to serve the Republic, master," his Padawan reminded him.

"And which side of this theoretical civil war better represents the Republic, Obi-Wan?"

The young Jedi frowned. "The one which maintains its integrity."

Qui Gon leaned back. "Ah. And what if neither does? Then what choice remains? We are not mercenaries, nor do we recognize the rule of might. A civil war implies an abandonment of fundamental principles, and therefore an imbalance in the whole. A true peace-keeper would step outside the confines of the antinomy."

Dooku waved a dismissive hand. "Thirty years and you have not outgrown your romanticism, Qui-Gon." He smiled paternalistically. "No, Padawan, a man of courage must choose and choose well. The side which represents a better ultimate outcome must be supported. Indeed, it is not sufficient to throw in one's lot; it would be better, perhaps, to intervene and shape the course of events before lesser powers could bend them to their own purposes."

Obi-Wan studied the senior master curiously. Yan Dooku held opinions he had not heard espoused before, in the Temple or elsewhere. "I am not sure I understand you, Master Dooku."

"It is simple," the silver haired Jedi informed him, with a tiny nonchalant shrug. "You and I are men who will take a _side—_while Qui-Gon here would rather abstain from such abstract determination, and find solace in universal pity for all pathetic life forms."

Qui-Gon's mouth twisted in a humorless smile. "Somebody must heal the wounds left by idealistic crusading," he remarked. "And light the funeral pyres of the crusaders."

"Such cynicism," Dooku scoffed, amicably. "I wonder where you learned such a thing, my friend."

Obi-Wan held his tongue, watching the dispute undertaken for his edification unfold into a subtle contest of wills between the two Jedi masters.

Yan Dooku turned to him, a piercing light in his grey eyes. "What shall it be, Padawan? The cause of the Republic, or the obscurity of perpetual relief work?"

A tense hesitation, in which both masters waited upon his answer.

"We are not engaged in a civil war, master, so I don't –"

"Tush!" Dooku snorted. "Don't evade the question. Which shall it be? The good fight or the noble gesture?"

Obi-Wan caught his mentor's eye. Qui-Gon was watching him, impassively, his thoughts shielded, but resignation and bitter expectation glittering behind his narrowed gaze. "I.. would follow my master's lead," the young Jedi offered.

Qui-Gon's face registered the briefest shadow of surprise and smoothed again. "What if he told you to make your own choice?" he challenged. "According to your recently adopted habit?"

"I should not follow in his steps," Dooku advised, lightly. "He is sure to lead you astray."

The Force sparked with Qui-Gon's severely contained outrage. Obi-Wan looked from one man to the other, reaching deep within for the answer.

"That is true, master," he admitted, eyes glinting. "But I do not know whether _you_ will. And Chakora Seva says _better an evil known than a danger yet unknown."_

Dooku's lips thinned, and his silver brows rose. Qui-Gon's expression softened, slightly. There came a flutter of humorous acknowledgement across their bond, a first thawing of constricting ice. Master and apprentice looked away simultaneously.

"Hmph," Dooku chuckled deep in his throat, swiveling about to face the console again. "A most illumining discussion. And we are nearly at our destination."

They dropped out of hyperspace a few minutes later.

* * *

The planet's atmosphere was turgid with storm-clouds; Dooku wrestled the ship into submission and guided them safely down, past the terminator into the veils of night. Jagged teeth lunged upward at them, crenellated peaks and lightning-shorn crevasses. Obi Wan paled slightly, staring through the viewport. They passed a high and cheerless citadel set upon a bleak pinnacle, swooping past in the blink of an eye.

Qui Gon felt it too; he remembered exhuming his then much younger apprentice from that grave-like fortress, and he remembered the raw and bleeding gashes cut across the Force by the boy's imprisonment – one short in duration but long in memory, in time spent healing. His hand reached, instinctively, for the Padawan's arm, before he remembered himself. But Obi-Wan did not flinch away.

He looked at Qui Gon and swallowed.

"Breathe," the master gently instructed, vowing silently to himself that he would never again see one of his own so _helpless, _ so _tormented,_ again.

Dooku shot a curious glance at him over one shoulder but said nothing, his focus upon the bucking and rattling ship as they drifted lower, buffeted by thermal updrafts and gusting wind. A bright beacon flare arced across the skies ahead; the Sentinel smoothly banked and turned, heading for the bright and fading signal.

"Master Moll is expecting us," he said, dropping lower, into the arms of a barren valley. The ship settled in a ravine, the winding bed of some long-extinct river. Dooku opened the ramp and descended, a pair of macrobinoculars in hand.

Qui Gon waited for his Padawan to speak first. It was the proper way: the apprentice should take the initiative in making amends. Obi-Wan had never before hesitated to accuse himself, to rush forward with eloquent protestations of contrition. However, there was a first time for everything, and this would appear to be one such occasion.

When the strained silence grew intolerable, he tugged lightly on the end of the boy's learner's braid. "What I wish to know," he said, carefully, "Is why you would go to Master Dooku?"

The Padawan glared at the decking. "You were preoccupied."

Qui-Gon leaned back, releasing a long breath. "Look at me."

He peered into glinting blue depths, and saw therein a reflection of his own impatient dismissal, his ill-chosen words. And beyond that, a reflection also of his own pain, the gnawing ulcer that already infringed upon their hearts where Tahl Uvain by rights ought to be. "You wanted to do this-" he waved a hand vaguely at the desolate landscape beyond the viewport, encompassing the whole planet, the entire mission, within the curt gesture, "For her."

There was a hardening of no longer quite boyish features. Obi-Wan nodded once.

"Did you think I would need be _forced_ to cooperate?" The Jedi master willed his incredulity not to stain his voice, but he did not succeed in full measure.

"I did not know what to think," the Padawan countered. "You forbade me to speak of it!"

The tenuous armistice was crumbling apart, their disparate viewpoints again carrying them to opposite ends of a nauseating pendulum swing, past the brief-lived apogee of unvoiced regret. "So you spoke to others in my stead."

"What would you have me do?" Obi-Wan demanded, a new and dangerously sonorous note girding his voice, a thrum like a saber's bright blade.

Qui Gon surged to his feet. "I would have you know your place, though I have clearly failed to teach it to you."

The Force cracked with whiplash resentment. "I know my place, master," the young Jedi growled, quietly. "It is in the broad realm of things outside the obsessive bounds of your _attachment."_

The tall man bit back a scoffing laugh. "So much for not dishonoring yourself with disrespectful words."

Obi-Wan flushed a deep crimson but did not drop his gaze. "I beg your pardon, Master Jinn," he said, formally, rising to his feet. Qui-Gon still dwarfed him, but there was enough fire in the Padawan's eyes to set the very air aflame.

For a long moment, Qui Gon hesitated. "Apology accepted," he replied at length, with equal formality. He jerked his head toward the exit. "Master Dooku will be expecting us to join him."

He waited until his Padawan had turned and preceded him down the ramp with a heavy heart and a heavier step, and then followed in his wake, the perpetual ache beneath his ribs doubled and trebled, a thing grown to monstrous proportions even as he trod the inescapable path of duty.

* * *

Jedi Master Yarriss Moll arrived in a dramatic cloud of repulsor-sworled dust, and dismounted the swoop bike in one fluid motion, his black cloak draping over immense shoulders, his twin Iktotchi cranial horns curving like scimitars downward, limning his harsh features in unremitting lines. He clasped arms with Dooku briefly, bowed to Qui Gon, and then took in the young man waiting a pace beyond with one piercing look.

Obi-Wan bowed.

"Padawan Kenobi," Dooku introduced him, as the Iktotchi Sentinel pushed the hovering speeder bike up the shuttle's ramp. "Qui-Gon's latest stray."

Yarriss Moll's alarming yellow eyes lit with uncanny humor. "I've heard the tales," he grunted.

To the Padawan's alarm, he accented this cryptic pronouncement with a small wink, and thrust his burly figure through the inner hatchway between cargo hold and abbreviated passenger cabin. The other Jedi accompanied him back into the cockpit, now uncomfortably full of long legs and broad shoulders. Obi Wan pressed himself against the bulkheads.

"I have seven separate contacts in the capitol," the Sentinel informed them. "They all confirm that a high-security interplanetary summit or convention is meeting, in the Catharsis dome. Its security features recommend it as a secure location for such a meeting."

"Catharsis?" the Padawan asked.

Dooku spared him an approving look. "A profitable entertainment franchise now outlawed by Republic sanctions against gladiatorial combat involving sentients. It was a major source of revenue until recent legislative reforms. Now the citizenry of Telos must content itself with more pallid forms of amusement, like civilized people."

Obi Wan raised his brows, expectantly.

"Generally they watch droids dismember one another, with or without amplified musical accompaniment or lewd cheer squad performances," Yarris Moll supplied, matter of factly. "On rare occasion, they have managed to sell out the entire stadium for a legal execution, but today's show is run of the mill debauchery. The conference is being held in the disused lower levels."

Qui Gon leaned back. "It will be difficult to safely arrest Arbor without endangering innocents. She will be accompanied by private security."

The Iktotchi nodded. "More to the point, Master Jinn, a Trade Federation liaison also attends, and he has brought automated security as well. And the Telosian security forces are not above bribery and corruption, as you know."

The Jedi master nodded, grimly. "They are holed up like womprats in flood season. We will need to lure them out of hiding."

"A false alarm should evacuate the dome. The lower levels, I presume, have separate emergency escape routes?"

Moll grunted in affirmation. "Tunnels to the surface level, for the use of officials during Catharsis days. I know their points of issuance."

Dooku folded his hands together pensively. "Then we shall have to lay ambush there. Yarriss and I shall take care of that," he decided. "Qui-Gon, your role shall be to create a believable alarm, one that will occupy the local security with a sudden evacuation. I daresay mayhem is still your specialty, is it not?"

"Obi-Wan and I have seen our share of it; creating more will be a simple matter."

Dooku held up a finger. "We should also send in a scout to determine whom we are dealing with, and their numbers."

"I can do that, Master Dooku."

All eyes turned to the youngest of the conspirators. "Indeed," Dooku drawled. "You have proved your facility for infiltration."

Qui-Gon stirred. "I suggest that task be appointed to a more experienced member of this group."

Master Moll considered him, head to one side. "You doubt your apprentice's capability?"

A thudding heartbeat in which the Force whispered of things past and present. "No," Qui-Gon answered, tersely. His grey eyes flashed as he addressed his Padawan. "You agreed to play this role beforehand."

The young Jedi did not deny it, nor did he display any shame.

"Talent should be given a chance to prosper," Dooku observed, "And it only flourishes through use." He looked down his aquiline nose at the other master, daring him to contradict this declaration.

"I see," Qui-Gon snorted, arms folded across his broad chest. "My authority has been overruled once again."

Yarriss Moll cleared the air with a loud clap of his hands, and settled himself opposite the Padawan in the rear of the cockpit, allowing the other two masters to take over the piloting. "Enough talk," he grunted. "We have a task to accomplish."

The shuttle lifted into Telos' dark purple skies and curved away toward the distant capitol.

* * *

"What have you there?" the Iktotchi demanded, observing the delicate crystal object his companion turned this way and that between restless fingers.

Obi Wan looked up, startled out of a first-rate brooding session. "A holocron, master." He opened his palm to display the tiny octahedron.

Yarris Moll's pale features cracked into a surprised smile. "That? Isn't that for remedial studies?'

The Padawan's mouth twisted to one side. "Yes… I suppose. Master Chopra gave it to me… for extra practice."

The Sentinel lifted the crystal into the air with a wave of the hand, and opened it. Another complex differential matrix problem appeared in its shimmering depths. "Ah…. That all resolves to nought point five parsecs," he muttered. "Simple."

"Simple?" Obi Wan repeated, openly astounded. Master Moll could give Master Chopra a run for his mathematical credits.

The holocron revolved, and unfolded its final layer.

"_To rely on another's strength for victory is better than failure locked in stubborn self-reliance_." The Iktotchi Jedi read aloud. "Oh, ho. Chopra loves to pontificate. What stuff." He hands the crystal back. "Before you take the advanced navigation exam, come to me. I'll show how it's done properly. Matrix integration is for droids, and crotchety theoreticians." He leaned back casually, his cloak sliding apart to reveal the gleaming saber hilt at his belt. "So tell me, what did you do to incur the old fellow's wrath?"

Obi-Wan stowed the holocron in a belt pouch. "Ah… well… I abandoned ship at Sullust, so to speak."

Yarriss Moll snorted. "Take Chopra's own advice next time." He pointed one thick finger at the young Jedi. "You know where to find help, should you ever need it. I speak for Master Dooku, as well."

They both understood that he referred to far more than mathematics. Obi Wan glanced up in Qui Gon's direction, feeling a sharp pang in his chest, but the tall master kept his back determinedly turned.

"Yes, Master Moll. Thank you."

* * *

"Here we are," Dooku sniffed. "A most wretched hive of scum and villainy."

The Catharsis dome was indeed _abuzz,_ both with sound and in the Force. The cheers and catcalls of a mindlessly swelling mob issued from its harsh black granite walls, along with the amplified clash and screech of gladiatorial droids and the throbbing Uuntz music ubiquitous to such low-brow milieus.

"Good business today," Yarriss Moll observed disdainfully.

Qui Gon offered no comment, surveying the crowded entrance gates with pursed lips.

"You know what to do, Kenobi. Comm us so soon as you have found them."

"You can rely on me, Master Dooku."

Qui Gon stepped apart from the other two Jedi and signaled his Padawan to join him. They withdrew into the shadow of the outer wall, where a massive buttress jutted against the black curve of the dome structure. "I do not think this is a good idea," he said, baldly.

"Master Uvain was wiling to die to accomplish this mission," Obi-Wan protested. "We should not balk at it, either."

"The Force is disturbed," Qui-Gon insisted. "More than even _this-"_ he gestured at the ampitheatre-_ "_Explains. I sense a trap."

"Are we not also laying a trap?' the Padawan countered.

"Dooku is not a fool," the tall master answered him. "What plot are you and he hatching together? Do not bother to deny that you foresee trouble – both of you have a strong attunement to the Unifying Force, and a tendency to sacrifice individuals to your cause."

Obi-Wan's expression of outrage did nothing to placate his mentor. "Well?"

"I will do what I must," the young Jedi said.

"And what is that? Do you realize how risky this planned arrest is? How risky your appointed role is?"

It was a vain rhetorical ploy. Obi-Wan's brows rose. "I am not a _child,_ master. Do you want to arrest Zan Arbor or not? I can _sense_ your need to resolve this matter." His gaze flitted sideways, impatient. "And they are waiting for us."

Qui-Gon's hands went to his belt, in a posture of simmering exasperation. "So you are still bent on defying me?'

Blue eyes met his in a blaze of indignation."I am doing this _for you _ as well as Master Uvain. We _will_ capture Zan Arbor – by whatever means necessary. Do not try to stop me." He tried to sidestep the tall Jedi, but found himself neatly trapped again.

"I could forbid you to participate any further."

"You could."

"I _should."_

They stood locked in a stalemate, neither yielding.

"Qui-Gon!" Dooku's cross summons cut across the lethally honed silence.

Gut twisting, the tall man turned aside, allowing his apprentice to move past him, toward the waiting Sentinel and the dome entrance, and wondering where in the wide galaxy, in the ever-Living Force, he had gone wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

* * *

There were two Telosian security officers posted at the stairwell leading to the sublevel.

"Halt," the first man ordered. "This area is restricted. Use the main lift bay on level A if you need the freshers."

"I am authorized to pass," Obi-Wan placidly informed the guard, his hand gently sweeping in an arc, fingers curled in the gesture of compulsion. "It's not a problem."

"It's not a problem," the officer slurred, his eyes a bit vacant.

"Hey!" his companion protested. "Who do you think you are?"

The young Jedi sidled toward the first steps. "You want to return to your duties," he suggested, bearing down with the Force.

The fellow hesitated, and Obi-Wan slipped down the first flight in three fluid bounds, checking for automated security measures. Footsteps sounded behind him; the second man had been less impressionable than his fellow. Another flight, another landing…. The footsteps hurried after him. With a muttered imprecation, he flattened himself around the corner of the next flight. The guard clattered down in hot pursuit, boots slapping against the duracrete stairs.

"Oooof!" he grunted as his face hit the opposite wall. His ambusher pinned his hands behind his back, flipped his blaster out of its holster and shoved him against the unyielding plaster surface. "_Sleep,"_ a voice murmured in his ear, and a moment later, he had slumped to the ground.

Obi-Wan paused, wondering how long his mind influence would last; he purloined the man's comlink and security code key as a safety measure, but there was no convenient place to detain him, and he had no stomach to _incapacitate_ the man any further. Qui Gon – or Dooku – would know what ought to be done, but he merely hastened on his way.

The last flight issued him into a narrow corridor leading to a sealed door. Here there were ceiling-mounted cannon, blinking with motion sensors. He skidded to a halt outside the passageway's boundaries, watching the tiny red targeting lights flit and skitter over the floor in random patterns.

"So uncivilized," he grumbled, sighting down the blaster's bulky length. Sometimes the direct approach was faster than messing about with deflection and defense. He shot out three of the mounted sentinels, dodged as the fourth aimed a sizzling bolt in his direction, rolled under the next blast and nailed the last enemy squarely with a bull's eye hit. Idly tossing the weapon into a corner, he reflected that it was a pity Garen Muln hadn't been here to witness his dazzling performance; his friend often ribbed him about his perceived contempt for uncouth modern weaponry. He _could_ excel at what he found distasteful – just as the holocron had admonished.

The room filled with smoke and drifting sparks, but miraculously, no klaxons sounded, and no footsteps yet hounded him. He approached the inner door and felt for the locking mechanism with the Force; it was a simple matter to nudge it open and push the massive portal apart. Two minutes, he counted. No alarm. He needed to disappear, soon.

The hallway behind the door was empty – but the Force warned him of a lurking menace. Overhead, the ceiling was paneled in sturdy duraplast; he waved one portion out of its framework and leapt straight up, into the low crawl space above, carefully sliding the panel back into place just as the tramp of metallic feet rounded the far corner.

Droids. Security droids. Master Moll had indicated that a Trade Federation magnate might be in attendance, and there had been rumors that the Neimodians had recently contracted with some technical industrial interest to produce automated guardians for their massive trade vessels. Legislation to permit such "standing" armies to exist within Republic space was pending in the Legislation currently; Obi-Wan had heard speculation that the Senate would allow an exception to the constitutional ban on free-roaming military powers on grounds that the droids were needed to prevent widespread piracy, and thereby a collapse in the Galactic trade economy. He had even seen a snide holonet pundit suggest that the Jedi were a lamentable failure, inasmuch as pirates were on the rise and "nothing had been done" about this threat to peace and prosperity.

As though a few thousand could patrol every parsec of a galaxy comprising _ten thousand_ inhabitable worlds and a near infinity of empty space between.

He shoved such aggravating thoughts aside and hurried along the crawl-way on hands and knees, muffling the scrape of boots against hard plastoid as best he could. Three minutes, perhaps four. Still no alarm.

A rodent trap lay in the dust ahead. He gingerly skirted it, pushing forward and then coming up against a grating at one end. He pulled it free, smothering a cough as dust billowed in his face. Cool air wafted up from below. Squinting into the darkness, he could just make out the gridwork of a structural support stretching across a wide space, a theater-like chamber in which a spotlighted speaker presented some speech or evidence to an eagerly gathered audience, dimly visible in the shadows beyond. Glimmering holoprojections rotated above their plates. From his angle, directly above, the images were not distinct or focused.

Cautiously, heart in his throat, he clambered out onto the narrow beams of the grille. Bracing his limbs against the intersections, he stretched out along one of the cross-supports, narrowing his focus to the voices of those below, reaching into the Force to enhance his perception.

"…met with negative results in laboratory tests," the figure behind the raised podium was saying. The voice was chillingly familiar; he had heard its nightmarish echo in a vision. The woman was slender, no taller than he was, and appeared to be the same age as Qui Gon and Master Uvain – though her Force presence was a pit of squalid darkness, not the gentle radiance of either Jedi master. Her steely-colored hair, cropped short enough to make her appear bald from a distance, matched the severe researchers' tunics she wore below a thin white coat. She pointed to a scrolling holo-display behind her as she delivered her address, then stopped to field questions.

"In short, you have nothing to produce as the fruit of all our investments," a haughty, lisping voice challenged her. Obi-Wan could just make out the bobbing outline of an enormous black hat, a ridiculous sartorial sculpture perched atop a swaying reptilian head. The Nemoidians were difficult to miss in a crowd; this would be the Trade Federation's envoy.

"Nothing?' the woman – Jenna Zan Arbor, for this must be she – sneered. "You are not of a scientific mind, clearly. We have made _great_ progress. Unlike the crass realm of economics, Science progresses both in failure and in success. We learn as much from the negative as the positive. After five years, I can definitively state that neuro-implants and electro-pulsar conditioning are not viable options. We must pursue biotic means of securing the desired effect."

An emaciated, blunt-featured creature in the back row waved a spindly hand. "And how far back does this set our plans? Another five years? Ten? Unlike the abstract realm of science, Economics can achieve its goals on a deadline."

Zan Arbor's silence was eloquent. There were scattered coughs and murmurs. Obi Wan grimaced; the awkward interlude was all too familiar- he recognized the pained backpedaling of a chastised apprentice or youngling in the face of a master's disapproval.

"If the Banking Clan thinks it can accomplish this feat without my assistance," she purred, "By all means withdraw the contract."

A deprecatory murmur met this ultimatum, and Zan Arbor's thin lips curved in a humorless smile. "As I was saying, this new strain has yet to be thoroughly tested. My last experiment was rudely interrupted by a raid on the Arbor facilities near Ossk-38. I cannot present conclusive evidence without obtaining another suitable test specimen."

A scratching, half-synthesized rumble was heard next. Obi Wan could make out the glint of metallic enhancements outlining a flat head. He was not sure what species the bounty hunter might originally have been, but now he surely must count more as cyborg than organic. He shuddered and adjusted his grip on the narrow beam.

"Your specs are too kriffin' narrow," this person complained. "Don't see why you need vaping Force-sensitives. We ain't lookin' to extract ju-ju juice. Why do we gotta support your private obsession?"

"Is your paycheck insufficient?" the woman hissed.

A shrug of indifference. "Just sayin'."

The Nemoidian had sufficient audacity – or lack of mother-wit – to concur with his mercenary cohort. "I agree," he lisped. "Perhaps if you concentrated on our project exclusively, we might see faster progress. Your esoteric personal interests have no relation to this… ambition of ours. I am sure the Offworld Director would like to know his funds are being channeled exclusively toward the common cause."

A rotund Telosian, decked out in the finery pertaining to his caste, waved a ring-bedecked hand and grunted in exasperation. "The Director should be allowed to speak for himself. But I do not think he disapproves of Doctor Arbor's _side_ interests. Such knowledge is useful, even if you lack the requisite imagination to see how."

Director? Offworld? The young Jedi perched high above the meeting raised his brows. So at least some remnant of Xanatos' insidious corporate empire still existed, and conspired with this band of villains to promote wicked research, some nebulous plot of their own hatching.

"We are off-track," Zan Arbor snapped. "I have yet to explain the neurological justification for the new strain." She tapped at the projector's controls and cast a new set of shimmering graphics into the darkened air about the podium.

As her lecture droned on, Obi-Wan cautiously hit the transmit button on his comlink.

"Dooku," came the soft answer.

He blinked once, unaccountably disappointed that it had not been Qui-Gon to answer first. "I've located them in an underlevel auditorium."

"How many?' Yarriss Moll's grating whisper inquired.

"Arbor, a dozen others, some sentient security, and they have droids down here. Lots of them."

"Hm. Whom else can you identify?"

"A Telosian minister, Trade Federation representative, a delegate from the Banking Clan, and at least one bounty hunter. I don't recognize the others, master, I'm sorry." He murmured these words in a very low voice, wary of creating the slightest disturbance, although Zan Arbor was happily prattling away below to her captive audience.

There was a long pause, during which the Jedi masters presumably conferred among themselves. At long last, Qui-Gon's reassuring baritone broke the silence. "We will proceed as planned. Stay where you are until they evacuate the area… and don't take unnecessary risks."

"Yes, master." A trickle of long-absent warmth suffused their shared bond, and – trickle or not – he relished it. A new flood of confidence filled him.

"Obi-Wan." The name was reminder and exhortation both, and perhaps, perhaps.. a hint of apology?

"I won't do anything you would not," the Padawan promised, forgetting momentarily that the link was a four-way channel.

Qui-Gon's hesitance conveyed an appreciation of the renewed truce, or at least the intention to make peace. All he said aloud was, "Brat."

Obi-Wan colored, remembering too late about the open comm channel. He thought he could make out Yarriss Moll's deep chuckle. Dooku interrupted by pointedly clearing his throat.

"Thirty seconds. Be ready. Jinn out."

"…in theory, producing a permanent condition comparable to hypnotic suggestibility. Due to the fragility of cortex cells, there is no other way to insure the suppression of voluntary impulse override without genetic alteration, which we have discussed as a last resort, due to the restrictive laws governing cloning practices and the time restraints pertaining to such large-scale projects…." Zan Arbor carried on, as the seconds counted down. Ten, nine…

Obi-Wan felt something…. something _elusive…_ slide across the back of his mind. His nape hairs rose. Six, Five…

And then it was gone again, a serpent disappearing beneath opaque waters without a ripple. He had felt that before, when… when… Two, One..

An emergency alarm sounded, cutting Zan Arbor's dissertation off in mid-sentence. The harsh-featured womans' brows rose. Her audience surged to its feet, muttering and exclaiming among themselves.

A bland recorded voice droned from the public announcement system. "Seismic event warning. Seismic event imminent. Please evacuate the premises in an orderly fashion. Repeat: Seismic event imminent. Please evacuate."

"You know what to do, people," the bounty hunter growled at the milling dignitaries. "This way, hustle, c'mon. You know the drill." He shepherded the nervous delegates out an exit at the far end, Zan Arbor hurriedly abandoning her podium and trailing after them.

The sirens continued to sound; overhead the dull roar of a panicking crowd could be heard. The Catharsis dome would take a long time to empty completely; the task would occupy the Telosian security forces nicely.

Obi Wan waited a handful of seconds, debating whether his instinctive drive to act constituted an _unnecessary risk_. But the auditorium had been abandoned, and Zan Arbor had left the holoprojector active and running. He did not debate long; another deep breath and he dropped from the roof girders in a long fluid motion, landing in a Force-cushioned crouch behind the podium. His fingers flew over the compact data-reader's controls, shutting down the projection and releasing the stored data crystals. There were two, and he pocketed both. If these contained summaries of Arbor's recent work, or more importantly, references to her co-conspirators, this alone would justify any risk.

He set his jaw. Tahl Uvain's mission would not be in vain.

Something slithered in the periphery of his awareness again, a slinking and oily _someone._

His heart skipped a beat, and his 'saber blade thrummed with blue fire, sizzling into guard position even as his head came up sharply, scanning the shadows.

A wraith separated itself from the clinging dark beneath the rear balcony and strolled casually up the central aisle, dark cloak obscuring its face, even as its presence was veiled and concealed within the Force, as invisible as the dust-laden air, as translucent as glass.

Obi-Wan had a very bad feeling about this newcomer. He swung his weapon in an aggressive flourish, releasing the spiking wave of dread into the Force, into the hot-sweet song of the blade.

"Oh, it's Kenobi," a reedy, fluting voice observed caustically. "I should have known." One thin hand flicked the cowl back to reveal sharp, finely drawn features, a thin beard and silver streaked hair.

Syfo-Dyas.

"What are you doing here?" they demanded of each other, in a dangerous chorus.

The fallen Shadow chuckled and took a few more paces forward. "Never mind. I know what you are doing here: sneaking and spying, as seems to be your wont. And what am I doing here, my young friend? Waiting for you. I should say, waiting for whomever would show up, but I am not disappointed to find an old acquaintance."

His 'saber flared to life, thrumming green in his hand, angled downward.

The Padawan breathed out self, breathed in the Force. _Master!_

Syfo-Dyas's brows rose. "You are, I presume, accompanied by a task group intending to make an arrest." He withdrew a small remote device from inside his cloak. "Let us say, you were anticipated." A flick of one finger against the control set the Force into a paroxysm of warning. A second later, the very foundations of the building seemed to quake. Dust cascaded form the ceiling, and a sound of thunder erupted overhead.

"Seismic event indeed. It takes a surprisingly small quantity of ion explosives to bring down a structure of this size. One more blast and we should have it in ruins."

Screams resounded above them, slicing ragged gashes across the Force; panic flared like wildfire, setting the Padawans' teeth on edge. "Stop!" he cried out.

"Then stand down," Syfo-Dyas suggested. His eyes traveled down to his 'saber blade, humming loudly in the cavernous space, and then to Obi-Wan's weapon. "We don't want to make a mess of things, do we?"

Somewhere overhead, a massive girder groaned. The despairing cry of a thousand people rent the air. The ex-Sentinel raised the control meaningfully. "Your weapon for this box," he offered. "I am a reasonable man."

They each extended a hand, summoning the desired object into their respective grasps. Syfo-Dyas clipped the Padawans' saber to his own belt with a thin smile. Obi Wan frowned over the remote detonator, prying off its back panel and ripping out the circuits one by one, then crushing the transceiver. He prayed that Dooku and the others would be able to save the Telosians endangered above.

"Now," Syfo Dyas drawled. "You need to come quietly. There is a time and a place for surrender."

"I haven't learned that yet," the young Jedi quipped, hurling the solidly-built podium at his foe with an explosive Force-push, and leaping straight up for the roof supports and his obvious route of escape.

With a curse, Syfo-Dyas flung the heavy projectile at his foe, sending it hurtling in a vicious line toward the roof. Obi-Wan twisted to one side, avoiding the blow, and missed his landing. The podium burst and shattered against the roof supports, raining down splinters upon the dais below. The Padawan fell, somersaulting, and landed in a roll, bits of wood pelting him about the head and shoulders. He raised a hand and threw them at Syfo-Dyas in a deadly hail. The tall man waved the assault aside and lunged forward, green blade howling. Obi Wan ducked, sprang backward, and glanced upward again.

Syfo-Dyas thew him into the far wall, knocking his wind out, and lunged forward to seize him by the throat before he recovered. Choking, Obi-Wan kicked out savagely, catching his opponent in the thigh, then twisted to wrench his own saber off the Shadow's belt.

The blue blade flashed, parrying a downward strike. He stumbled back into the wall under the crushing power of the strike, the two 'sabers pulsing and spitting, searing the very air.

Syfo Dyas snarled, and disengaged. "Very well. I am happy to teach you a lesson."

Obi-Wan brought his weapon up in the classic Makashi salute. And they clashed, weapons whirling and striking in a tight, controlled dance, a flurry of deadly accuracy and banked fire, screeching together and spewing trails of sparking fire across the wide dais, leaving a spangled galaxy of burn-marks behind them in a wide swath. Syfo-Dyas's face hardened, and then contorted into a snarl of outrage as he encountered a new embodiment of Dooku's masterful style, one he had not been prepared to –

-a sudden reversal and feint, and the Padawan swung about, unexpectedly, delivering a stunning kick that knocked the weapon out of his opponent's hand. Syfo-Dyas stumbled, and narrowly dodged the next strike.

"Yield!" the young Jedi shouted at him.

A blaster shot caught his 'saber's hilt and sent it spinning into the darkness. He pivoted, shocked and appalled.

Twenty droids were ranked below, blasters leveled and waiting. Behind them, the cyborg bounty hunter waited. And behind him, the cowering delegates and Jenna Zan Arbor, standing with arms folded across her chest, impatient.

"You've won the battle but lost the war," Syfo Dyas grimly informed his foe, summoning his fallen weapon back to his hand. "We'll be departing now, while your companions still have their hands full upstairs. And I think you will be accompanying us. Jenna wants remuneration for stolen goods."

"Abloz," Zan Arbbor barked out, and the bounty hunter clanked his way forward, as the droids locked and targeted onto the Padawan.

Obi-Wan favored the mercenary with a disdainful glare as the fellow snapped a pair of binders onto his wrists. Syfo-Dyas' saber blade thrummed menacingly, the droids' soulless optics stared dispassionately at him, and Jenna Zan Arbor surveyed him with a cool and predatory light in her pale eyes. Her tongue moistened her thin lips and she nodded curtly at Abloz.

"See, the Director knew you was coming. He even knew you would sounda false alarm," he said, leaning in close to the prisoner's ear. Something cold pressed against the young Jedi's neck. "You are going to wish you was already dead," he confided. "Arbor's a kriffin' _loontza."_

A point of sharp pain blossomed into icy fire, and then numbness, and then…

Oblivion.


	11. Chapter 11

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

* * *

Screams and shouts, curses and strangled cries echoed from every dark corner. With the explosion, the main power generators for the dome had failed, leaving the mob blanketed in stifling dark. People trampled each other, pressed against scaffolding, tripped over tiered rows of seats, in their haste to leave the collapsing structure.

Qui-Gon stood, feeling the weight of the entire massive construct bearing down upon his shoulders. Or to be more accurate, the shoulders of the three Jedi masters now trapped beneath the twisted metal girders of this place, the Force stretched taut between them, amplified and multiplied amongst them as they strove as one to accomplish the impossible. Dooku's presence was the lynch-pin, a foundation and center the tall man had never thought to feel so closely again; but the extremity of this situation called for it, and he gave himself over to the long-forgotten feeling, the sense of being _managed, guided _by another's strength.

The dome held.

_Master!_ The shout across his inner awareness nearly broke his concentration, and something overhead groaned ominously, a beam twisting and sliding as the roof tried to crumple beneath its own weight. He blocked out the voice, the panic, his own responsive surge of protective fear. The here and now, the here and now….

The last footsteps on this level faded, the final flicker of sentient thought dwindling into the outside regions. He gathered himself… and let go.

Girders snapped, roofing tiles fell, insulation warped and hung at weird angles, and the entire dome roof began a graceful implosion, rumpling into a mangled ball as it slowly descended, crushing the infrastaructure beneath itself as it fell. Qui-Gon ran, leapt, dived, and rolled, narrowly avoiding entombment beneath the wreck. He landed coughing and shaking with prolonged exertion, his sight blurred by the clouds of dust, by sheer exhaustion.

He stumbled upright, closed his eyes. _Obi-Wan!_

No answer but an undefined sense of danger and raw surprise. _Padawan!_

Shock. Determination. Battle fury. No time to answer, to think. Saber blades clashed, spitting and thrumming.

Saber blades? His heart plummeted into his gut.

"Qui-Gon. There you are."

Dooku appeared as a ghostly shadow of himself, his black cloak and tunics begrimed with cascading dust, his silvering hair now coated with a liberal layer of dull filth.

"The basements," he gasped. "Obi-Wan. Quickly."

Neither Moll nor Dooku protested; the three of them plunged toward the nearest stairwell, shoved a collapsed beam out of the way with a concerted use of the Force, and all but flew down the dark passage toward the lower levels.

* * *

A voice was dropping rough syllables, grating sounds falling out of the languid dark as though shaved off a block of harsh granite, flakes and chips of sound striking the ear with an unwelcome asperity.

Obi –Wan tried to roll over, away from the obnoxious intrusion upon his bliss. He reached for the hard pillow, to burrow beneath it, or perhaps to throw it at Qui-Gon, whose unscrupulous invasion of his privacy at this Sithly hour was inexcusable, masterly privileges or no.

Except, oddly enough, the sleep mattress felt more like a cold ship's deck, and there was no pillow at all. He dragged open unwilling eyelids and squinted at the blearing lights, phantasmagoric smears of color striating across his vision. His head hurt. As though it might split apart at any moment.

"Master," he groaned, trying to remember the events leading up to this present scene of disaster. A boot connected with his ribs, sharply, and the resulting throb of pain convinced him – with a sudden and irrevocable clarity – that Qui-Gon Jinn was nowhere near, and that this place was most assuredly not his quarters in the Jedi Temple.

And, now that he bothered to listen, the speaker's voice sounded like that of an addictive bacci smoker, or a dying bantha. And the words were laced with a plethora of obscenities and grammatical errors.

So uncivilized. He tried to sit up, sending his headache rocketing upward into the skies of pain, exploding like a firework on Republic Day and fizzling down in confetti trails of nerve-wracking shivers. He swallowed down bile, and then had to swallow it again. The ship – it must be a ship – was being piloted by a lame excuse for a drunken acrobat, judging by the horrific rolling and tilting of the decks beneath him. He slid into the bulkhead, and discovered that his hands were shackled. But darkness called, and he really didn't –

"I said _get up, _you pathetic little barve," the voice grunted. A pair of rough fists seized his tunics and hauled him halfway upright , propping him against the smooth plastoid wall. "Director wants a chat with you."

He forced his eyes open, and found himself staring down the snout of a semi-cyborg. He noticed how the living flesh puckered about the edges of the prosthetics, how a scruff of what might be facial hair sprouted from this piebald being's chin in a hoary tuft, how hot and rank this person's breath was. He fought down his urge to vomit again.

"Ah, that doesn't feel too good, does it?' asked the bounty hunter – it _was _ a bounty hunter, he knew that much - details were slowly drifting out of the fuzzy clouds of his mind, pooling and running together.

Stupid question, really. The Force coiled about him, responsive to his agitation; he grasped at it, but it slid away, dripping and puddling together with his thoughts, running downhill, away away…

A slap across the face brought his attention back to the moment. "Chiizzssk," Abloz cursed. "Think I mighta overdosed ya, ya poor little kriffer. Lady boss didn't give me no chart or nothing. C'mon, stay with me. He's waitin."

He? Who?

"That's sufficient," a reedy voice commanded. Abloz' grotesque form was replaced by another – refined, almost delicate features, a long nose, high forehead, silvering hair tied back severely. Dark robes.

Syfo-Dyas raised a hand and brushed contemplative fingers through the Padawans' damp hair. The gesture evoked a tiny grunt of resentment, and a flicker of longing in the Force.

"Oh, you won't be seeing _him_ again," the ex-Jedi lamented, coolly. "Had it been my choice, I would have killed you on the spot. I am not a cruel man. However, Jenna and I have a standing arrangement. And she is for the moment too useful not to be indulged."

The Force writhed backward, Light separating from Dark, repulsed, unwilling to mingle. Obi-Wan pulled the luminous threads closer, weaving a feeble armor, but the impalpable strands came loose, tumbling and rolling around him, present but not _his._ He clenched his jaw tight, hearing his teeth chatter. Anxiety swelled and he released it into the seething currents.

Syfo-Dyas rolled back on his heels, thoughtfully. "So it does work, in some degree. But you can still feel it, can't you?"

With a sickening jolt, the young Jedi realized that he meant the _Force._ What had happened to him? He struggled to cast off the cloying chains of lassitude, but somehow floundered and failed in this endeavor. _Breathe,_ he chided himself. _Do not panic. _He searched for his voice and found it discarded in a corner at the bottom of his throat. With a wheezing rasp, he choked out his first coherent reply. "I can feel your _rot,"_ he affirmed, summoning a feral smile of contempt.

Syfo-Dyas's thin lips tightened. "Spicy," he remarked. "Qui Gon's brat, indeed."

That was an insult to his _master,_ something not to be tolerated. "You aren't worthy to _speak_ about Qui Gon Jinn. Traitor."

This thrust was parried aside with ease. "Then I shan't. I would much rather talk about you. I assume, since you appeared on our doorstep, that Tahl Uvain managed to live long enough to convey our whereabouts."

His question went unanswered, so Syfo-Dyas rightly interpreted the silence as a grudging affirmative. "She was insolent, too – at first. In fact, she tried to escape the lab three times before she grew too weak. Impressive. Are you well acquainted, perchance?"

Obi-Wan felt the Sentinels prying mental fingers begin to dig, to burrow and quest for information, for chinks in his armor. He resisted, calling on the Force, but of course it merely shuddered and swelled around him, a sloppy and storm-tossed sea, casting him about on its waves but not pliant to his command. Syfo Dyas easily penetrated his barriers.

"Oh, I _see," _the fallen Jedi murmured. "How poetic that you will likely suffer the same fate. Your filial devotion is touching, but –alas- futile. Now tell me, how much of what you heard and saw did you transmit?"

The young Jedi grinned saucily. "All of it," he tossed off, aware that the untruth would be easily discerned, but still enjoying the momentary glint of alarm in his interlocutor's slanting grey eyes. "Though I made you more intelligent and attractive in the mission report. Sometimes younglings read them in the Archives, and I didn't want to scare anybody."

Those pale slits narrowed further. "I see you have yet to learn your place," he observed icily. "We shall amend that defect."

The mind probe that followed was thorough, and excruciating. When the former Shadow had finished, he sighed. "As I suspected. Your interference was harmless enough."

His victim lay panting, dizzy with mingled relief and pain. "Traitor," he spat out, too exhausted to summon any more sophisticated taunt. And he could tell that the repeated accusation quite vexed Syfo-Dyas.

"If that is what you call anyone clever enough to outmaneuver you. After Uvain's escape, I very much expected some sort of attempt at infiltration. And I have played dejarik with Yan Dooku many, many times, my young friend. One grows to know one's opponent quite well after so many years – and as you can see, it is I who have anticipated _his _ treachery this time."

Obi-Wan rolled onto his back, and managed a shaky grin. "I forgot to include _bombastic driveller _in my description of you," he drawled. "Shamefully inaccurate."

Syfo-Dyas clucked his tongue against his teeth dismissively. "You must have been a very bright and agreeable lad before Qui-Gon ruined your character," he sighed as he stood to leave. "Abloz, don't let him go anywhere."

"Yeah, I got it, Director," the mercenary grunted, adjusting the weight of the heavy rifle slung across his knees.

And the hatchway hissed shut behind the Shadow's fluttering cloak hem.

* * *

The emptiness of the auditorium was damning.

"I can't feel him," Qui Gon growled. He cast about, seeking the exits. "There. They must have taken that emergency corridor to the surface." He was halfway to the sealed door when Dooku's voice brought him up short.

"Don't be a fool. They've long since gone."

The tall Jedi master spun on the spot. Dooku stood, immovably calm amidst the chaos raging in the Force, dignified even in his state of outward dishevelment. "You _expected _this!" Qui-Gon accused him.

"Please, control yourself. It was a distinct possibility. And I always plan for exigencies."

Qui-Gon closed the space between them in four strides. "Obi-Wan knew about this, didn't he?'

Dooku raised a brow. "He was aware of the risks, and I must say, I do not believe even you could have dissuaded him from his chosen line of action. It was an informed choice."

A muscle leapt along Qui-Gon's jaw. "He's fifteen."

"And already a remarkable man. You seem to be the only one blind to that fact, Qui-Gon," the Councilor snapped. "Now, if you have quite finished ranting, we should return to our vessel."

"We don't know where they've gone. They won't return to Arbor Foundation."

Dooku led the way up the blackened stairwell again. "Indeed. And that is a bonus; we may be able to pinpoint another base of operations. This is fortuitous from a certain point of view."

Qui-Gons's hand clenched about his weapon's hilt. "We have no means of tracking them," he pointed out tightly. "And _no time_ to delay. Tahl – "

Dooku waved a conciliatory hand at him. "Unfortunate. But irrelevant. I am not so foolish as you seem to think. Your Padawan is carrying a small holocron, which, he understands, is linked to another in my possession. I made the arrangements before we departed. If he opens his, I should be able to locate him. And I assure you, Zan Arbor will not be able to resist the lure of such an artifact. "

"True," Yarriss Moll interjected behind them. "By all reports, she is obsessed with all manifestations of the Force. It is a topic of private fascination."

Qui-Gon blanched. "Is she a Sensitive?'

"No," the Iktotchi replied. "Merely a fanatic."

This assurance was of scant comfort.

The street level was a riot of emergency response vehicles and disorderly crowds, They pushed through the distraught Telosians, the shouting and gesticulating security officers, the throng gathered to witness the disastrous collapse of the Cathariss dome, the holonet reporters and hovering cam droids, the drunks sprawled on the duracrete, too inebriated to remember how they had escaped the catastrophe, and apparently beyond caring.

Dooku stepped grimly over the last of these prone forms and headed straight for the nearby hangar bay, the other two Jedi on his heels.

* * *

He couldn't _use_ it. But he could feel it.

This had to be like one of Master Yoda's riddles. Like one of the innumerable adages and proverbs with which Jedi younglings were bombarded since before their memories coalesced into personal narrative. There were sayings and mantras for _everything. _ Even Master Chopra's mathematical holocron – the one for obtuse students – was chock full of such pithy wisdom. _Rely on another's strength. Make your weakness your strength. Diligence begets joy, begets skill. Mastery of what is most difficult is true self mastery. _ And so on. The words spun and tumbled in his mind, a concatenation of puzzles and veiled meanings.

"A Jedi does not use the Force; the Force uses him," he recited aloud.

"Shut up," Abloz snorted.

Well, the Force wasn't _using_ him particularly well at the moment, was it? With a disgruntled sigh, he tried the most basic centering meditation again, the practice of sheer passivity, absolute receptivity. The Force flooded inward, seeping into the very corners of his being, whispering of nothing and everything, telling him to _wait_ and be ready.

So he waited, feeling more than slightly _sick,_ and tried not to brood upon what might come next.

As it turned out, he didn't have to. His next visitor was none other than Zan Arbor herself. "Abloz," she barked, making a sharp gesture at her quasi-cyborg retainer. The bounty hunter shuffled forward and abruptly straddled the Padawan, pinning him down beneath his crushing weight, one hand firmly clamped about the young Jedi's jugular, the other twisted cruelly in the binders' joint..

"Shut up and hold still," he ordered. "Or you'll regret it."

Obi-Wan still flinched when Zan Arbor came at his face with her fingers; but in the end all she did was pull back one eyelid and shine a bright light into his pupil, then shove some kind of sensor probe halfway down his ear canal, provoking a reflexive squirm Abloz easily suppressed with his choke-hold.

"Hm," the scientist muttered, surveying the instrument. Then, pricking him in the hand with some other tiny object, "You're cute. What a waste."

She slotted the blood sample into an analyzer and frowned over its results for a moment, her severely plucked brows contracted into a single fierce line of concentration. "You can let him go, Abloz," she decided. "He's out of it, well and good. How many units did you give him?"

The mercenary shrugged noncommittally.

This lack of scientific measurement did not stop Zan Arbor from injecting another unspecified amount of whatever-it-was into his neck. Abloz released his captive with a last warning squeeze to the throat.

The Force gathered, a tide hissing noisily in the forgotten pools and hollows of his spirit, rising despite his inability to manipulate it. _Be ready._ Obi-Wan struggled to sit, and to scoot backward from Arbor's perfidious clutches. The ship's decks still tilted madly, but by now he had determined that this was a mere side effect of whatever poison had been dumped into his body without permission , or- apparently – any sense of moderation. He rather wondered whether he would be able to stand when the time came.

Jenna Zan Arbor pulled out something from a pocket in her long coat and held it before him. "This was in your equipment, along with the two data crystals you stole from me. The Director tells me it is an information storage device. Suppose you open it now."

"I can't," he snorted. "You've made sure of that."

Her eyes gleamed with a manic light. "Ah… this requires your _Force_ to open, does it?" She turned the tiny holocron over between her fingers. "Then why can't Syfo-Dyas manipulate it?"

Obi-leaned his head backward against the cool plastoid of the bulkheads, willing himself to stay focused. The Force ebbed and flowed, but did not stay with him. He felt …afloat, and numbingly cold. "He must be dreadfully incompetent at mathematics," he suggested, battling the darkness infringing upon his vision once again.

Zan Arbor squinted at him. "So," was her laconic response. She stood. "I'll pass that on. I wonder what secrets this little crystal contains?"

That was funny, but he hardly had the strength to smile. "Don't go already," he murmured, on the verge of drifting off. "We're having such a lovely time."

"I'm not done with you," she promised, snapping her fingers closed about the glittering holocron. "Not at all."

The hatch slid closed again, just as he slumped against the decks, clutching at the evasive Force with his last fading shreds of consciousness.


	12. Chapter 12

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

* * *

The moment came.

He was abruptly and completely alert, the Force pouring in a torrent through him, unbidden and untamed, naming the time and the place, commanding rather than commanded.

Obi-Wan relaxed into it, flooded with borrowed strength, exulting in the sudden return of that he could not grasp. He watched the door open, watched Syfo-Dyas' tall back as the man strode into the cargo hold and turned to speak with Abloz, muttering that they had nearly reached their destination, that the prisoner would have to be _carried_ off the ship if he was too incapacitated to walk, that certain arrangements would be made at the new facility.

The Force carved a path through the jungles of potentiality, a clear and concise plan of action. And it rose, effulgent, within his every cell. The binders popped off with a satisfying click.

He held out a hand, and the Sentinel's saber flew into his grasp. Syfo-Dyas spun about; Abloz leapt to his feet, cursing, his rifle leveled at the young Jedi's head. But the howling blade moved faster, sweeping into a guard position, deflecting the blast into the bounty hunter's foot. The cyborg staggered backward, cursing, as Syfo-Dyas lunged forward. Obi-Wan hurled the ex-Jedi against the opposite wall, or perhaps the Force did – he could not distinguish the two, and surely he had made no conscious choice – and slammed the hatch open. The door hissed closed behind him and he buried the pulsing saber's length in the controls, jamming it.

He burst into the cockpit, where a pair of uniformed pilots and Zan Arbor were closeted. The scientist barely had time to issue a shrieking cry of alarm before he had her pinned against him, the thrumming saber blade mere centimeters from her neck.

"Revert," he ordered the pilot, who stared open-mouthed at the chaotic scene.

"_Now,_ or she dies and you're next," the Padawan threatened, pulse drumming in his ears. Escape, escape. He would cripple this ship's main controls, then launch the escape capsule and activate its emergency beacon. His captors would be stranded, and if the Force stayed with him, he would be picked up, or else fall into some planet's gravity well. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was a plan.

The pilot wordlessly pulled them out of hyperspace. The ship lurched as they re-entered starry night. Zan Arbor twisted in his grip and he brought the blade yet closer to her skin, until she arched backward into him, her bony fingers clawing at his arm.

"Release me," she hissed. "You're not going anywhere."

He saw the second pilot's hand creeping toward his holster, and flicked the weapon out of its place into the passage beyond. The man cowered, sweat beading at his temples.

"Idiots," Zan Arbor chuffed. "He won't kill me. He's Jedi."

The men looked nervously at each other,

"Don't try it!" he warned. _I've killed before._ _I can do it again._

Except he couldn't. Not like this.

Instead he shoved Zan Arbor, flailing, into the nearest man and buried the 'saber in the main console, carving a vicious line through transponder, drive regulators and yoke. The tiny cockpit filled with smoke and blaring alarms. Flourishing the blade, he backed toward the aft hatchway. Escape pod. His free hand groped along the wall, feeling for the control panel. The Force ebbed, retreating, even as the world began to melt and blur, a creeping darkness eating away at its periphery.

"Stop him," Zan Arbor mouthed, and the two pilots cringed as he swept the 'saber down and around, holding them at bay. His searching fingers found the inset panel, and he scrabbled at its surface until a door hissed open beside him. He tumbled through, reeling, limbs shaking, strength deserting him, and jabbed at the release mechanism with the last of his resolve.

There was a metallic groan, a grinding of metal… and then nothing.

Hope guttered out and failed.

The door was wrenched open with a violence suggestive of extreme rage, and Syfo-Dyas' silhouette filled the wavering threshold. A snap of his wrist sent Obi-Wan crashing heavily against the curved interior wall of the pod; the saber dropped from his limp fingers as he slid down its unyielding surface, stunned.

"Stars' end," the Shadow murmured, his fluting voice edged with steel. He held out a hand and summoned the weapon back into his grasp. 'You really are a handful." He stepped down into the interior and crouched beside the dazed Padawan, hard fingers digging into the boy's cheekbone and jaw. "And an insolent brat."

Obi-Wan struck out, and found his wrist caught in a crushing grip. Syfo-Dyas tightened his hold until he earned a sharp grunt of pain.

"Amazing," Zan Arbor purred, from the passage outside. "He's not supposed to be able to access your Force. How did he do that?"

The ex-Sentinel pursed his lips. "I cannot say. But you had better take more… aggressive… precautions with this one." He bent the young Jedi's arm at a cruel angle, forcing him to double over until his forehead touched the cold deck plating. The binders went on again, this time behind his back. A hand twisted in his hair kept him in position as the scientist entered the pod's cramped confines, and knelt beside the would-be escapee.

Her perfume reeked of wilting flowers, the slow decay of some exotic blossom.

"Ma'am," one of the pilots said, thrusting his head inside the pod. "I've activated the distress signal. We're near Tarbool – this is Trade Federation space. We should be able to obtain assistance soon."

"Good," the woman barked, "We'll use the old Offworld research station on Tarbool's third moon. Most the equipment is still there, and the rest can be shipped."

"Yes, ma'am."

Something smooth and cold slipped about the Padawan's neck. He shuddered, suppressing the wild lash of fearful memory – Xanatos – Telos – death death death –

"I prefer my specimens not to be neurologically damaged," Zan Arbor infomed him academically. "But you leave us little choice. I'll give the electrocollar control to Abloz. He does have an itchy trigger finger, as you may have observed."

Syfo-Dyas hauled the young Jedi upright, until he knelt before the maniacal scientist. She surveyed him coldly. "Don't worry – before very long you won't have the spunk to fight any more.. and that will make it easier on everyone."

It was with a singularly dark undercurrent that Obi-Wan made his wry private amendment to her words: _everyone except me._ Outwardly, of course, he merely offered her a smug and impertinent smile, and received a stinging slap for his troubles.

* * *

Yan Dooku's aquiline features were etched as stonily as ever upon his face, betraying not a flicker of emotion, neither confidence nor worry. But his voice did thrum with a note of connoisseur's appreciation, the hunter's enjoyment of the exquisite game of the hunt.

"So," he almost purred. "Syfo-Dyas."

The two other Jedi masters stared, speechless.

The holocron floating in mid-air above Dooku's open palm snapped shut and fell into its owner's hand. He turned about, opening his eyes. "Syfo-Dyas is behind this. It was he whom I felt - there can be no doubt. He has your Padawan's holocron, Qui-Gon."

Yarriss Moll cursed softly under his breath. "That vile traitor is in league with Arbor. This is graver than we thought."

"Do you know where they have gone?" Qui Gon inquired, the eagerness in his own voice betraying him.

His former master raised one admonishing eyebrow, but nodded. "Yes. Syfo-Dyas could not resist the lure; he has tried to open your Padawan's holocron, and I have caught him at it. They are near Tarbool."

Yarriss Moll, seated at the back of the cockpit, stirred. "Our scouts have reported an abandonded Offworld facility on the main planet's third moon," he offered. "That may be their destination."

Dooku promptly set to work on the nav-comp array. Qui Gon folded his hands into opposite sleeves and exhaled, thanking the Force for this thinnest of connections, this tiny glimmer of hope. He reached into the plenum, vainly trying to touch his apprentice through their bond, but found nothing save a diluted miasma of dread and confusion.

The Iktotchi Sentinel placed a broad hand on his shoulder. "Peace, brother," he advised. "We will do all we can."

The tall master nodded his thanks, grimly reflecting that Moll had lost his last Padawan less than a year ago, during a touchy espionage mission. The extraction team had arrived too late to save the courageous young Jedi, though the mission had been a success.

Qui-Gon's fingers curled about his saber's hilt.

If they failed to arrive in time, it would be too late for _him._

* * *

The new facility was a fine example of the sterile squalor characterizing medical centers and research labs in every corner of the galaxy. Not that Obi-Wan had toured much of this place; but what little he _could_ see – a stretch of bland and slightly sagging ceiling, two corners of a whitewashed cell outfitted with polished countertops and an array of… things…. in plastoid containers – led him to conclude that the interior designer had the aesthetic sensibilities of a blind bantha.

Cataloguing the lab's obvious defects was a useful distraction; it prevented him from focusing on its eerie similarity to the scoured harshness of the Arbor Foundation building where he and Qui Gon had found Tahl… the scrubbed and gleaming hell he had witnessed in harrowing visions. It likewise prevented his agile imagination from concocting possible future scenarios involving the grotesquely looming _equipment_ stowed in the corners.

He wriggled and strained against the superfluous number of restraints pinning him to this most uncomfortable surface, and decided after due consideration that although the appointments were downright ugly, they were also lamentably sturdy. He sighed, and closed his eyes, blocking out the wretched surroundings and calling on the shy and skittish Force, the Light that fawned around him and lingered even in the lifeless corners of this prison, only to elude his grasp. It still would not obey. He fought down a mounting wave of frustration. His anchor was tantalizingly close, and yet disturbingly inaccessible.

_Let the Force use you. Rely on it not as a tool but as an ally._

He had faced and overcome many perils in his short life, but this was something else again. Like the solution to the dratted matrix integration problem in his advanced astronavigation class, the answer to his dilemma seemed forever to dangle just outside his reach, just beyond his capacity to understand. Only, in this case, the stakes seemed to be just a _tad_ higher.

"Master," he whimpered. Quietly. Before he could stop himself. Not that he was _speaking_ to Qui-Gon Jinn at the moment, of course.

Sadly, it was not the tall Jedi who responded to this heartfelt plea, but a far less welcome person. The far door – one he could not see from this angle – opened with a hiss of pressure pistons, and the faint aroma of rotting flowers assaulted his overwrought senses.

The soft whirring of a lightweight repulsor followed Zan Arbor's footfalls, and a hovering medical droid appeared in his peripheral vision, burbling about near one of the storage cabinets on the room's far side.

Jenna Zan Arbor tapped a stylus against her front teeth and stood over him, datapad in hand, sizing him up with a calculating air of abstraction. Obi-Wan blushed violently; his garments has been confiscated, leaving him clad in exactly _nothing - _ and he did not at all like the look in the evil woman's eye.

She seemed – unaccountably – to take pity on him, for in the next moment she brusquely unfolded a thermal blanket from its place on a shelf and spread the self-heating material over him, providing relief from the pervasive chill and her prying gaze at once.

"Humans need a thermostatic environment," she snarled at the droid, which blurped in acknowledgement. "Make sure his core temp doesn't drop any lower."

"I presume you know why you're here," she added, addressing the Padawan directly.

"To arrest you, I believe," he shot back. "Though there seems to be a misunderstanding."

Zan Arbor made some more notes on her datapad. "Jedi are supposed to value wisdom, so you should be honored to promote my pursuit of knowledge. My last three subjects were all female, and past their prime. Perhaps you will be more resilient. I am on the verge of a breakthrough, you know."

In his opinion, she was more likely on the verge of a break_down, _ but he didn't bother to point this out. "You cannot obtain wisdom by tormenting innocent beings," he countered. "Especially regarding the Force."

"So you say," the woman replied, evenly. "But that is your fusty religion speaking, not Science. I intend to lift the study of your so-called Force out of the regions of burdensome superstition and obscurantism, into the modern age. You Jedi _have_ something you do not understand; I intend to effect a paradigmatic revolution; you hoard your natural gifts and dispense them to whom you will, but I intend to shed the light of day on this Force and to harness it for the benefit of all sentients. That is true philanthropy, as opposed to your archaic notions of compassion and service. I will bring about the next Enlightenment."

And he had thought Syfo-Dyas melodramatic? Stars above. "Through means of torture?" he asked, when her rant had subsided. "…How truly enlightened."

"Sacrifices must be made for the common good," she snapped, and turned to assist the droid, which was taking a worrisome length of time to make its preparations.

"I want the usual tissue extractions, bone marrow, spinal fluid, and three vials of blood for a control panel," she ordered the automated assistant. "And,' -a quick and assessing glance over one shoulder –"Get me a gamete sample, too. I need to do a statistical analysis of whether the target traits are chromosomally imbedded or random mutations."

The droid blipped and bleeped its acquiescence, and Zan Arbor tapped more information into her datapad before heading for the door. "My more specialized equipment is still on its way," she informed her prisoner. "But so soon as it arrives, we'll be ready to start."

'I can't wait," he grunted.

It was true enough; given his preference, he would rather not stay around long enough to wait _at all._

Zan Arbor laughed mirthlessly and swept into the corridor beyond, as the efficient droid finally finished its deliberate preparations and thrummed forward, utility arms bristling with a dizzying array of clinical tools.

"Oh, lovely," Obi-Wan gasped, bracing himself for what promised to be a most _invasive_ encounter.

* * *

"Are we there yet?" Qui-Gon demanded of Yarriss Moll when the burly master pushed his way into the aft compartment.

The Iktotchi snorted sardonically. "A matter of minutes, I believe. And then we must discuss options for infiltration. The new location will be provided with some form of security, though it has been disused for some time."

Qui-Gon spread his hands upon the curving bulkhead and leaned his weight against its bland, impersonal surface. Impatience seeped across his shields, suffusing the Force with smoldering anticipation of battle to come.

Yarriss Moll hesitated, a pace behind. "You are disturbed."

Qui-Gon opened his eyes, relcuctantly turning to face his fellow Jedi. He was indeed, disturbed; his meditation during transit had been brief and hardly salutary. His quarrelsome heart tugged him in two directions at once, pulling him back from the brink of serenity into the hot embrace of attachment again and again. He longed to be once more at Tahl's side; he was desperate to have his Padawan back at his own, and safe from the malicious and wanton cruelty of Jenna Zan Arbor. Peace was elusive; and without peace, there could be no true insight. He was, in this vale of tears and shadows wrought by _need, _ by affection and devotion, as blind as Tahl -his intuitive connection to Life crusted over by the cataracts of emotion.

Love. And something stirring deeper, close to hate. Arbor. Syfo-Dyas. These names seemed but masks and shadows worn by the nameless Dark.

"I am," he confessed, bowing his head. Yarriss Moll was a fellow Jedi – his brother in the Force – and this concerned all of them upon this mission. "I harbor inappropriate passions."

The Iktotchi master leaned back against the opposite wall. waving shut the hatchway which separated them form the small cockpit. 'You blame Yan for your apprentice's capture," he stated bluntly, crossing his arms but not projecting hostility.

Qui-Gon was nothing if not forthright. "Blame? No. But he did deliberately encourage my Padawan to pursue a dangerous course of action, one which he is not ready to face."

Yarriss Moll's brows drew together. His harsh features were not softened by the expression of dubiety. "Your apprentice, Master Jinn, strikes me as both strong willed and extraordinarily perceptive. Why do you question his readiness – unless it is your own which is truly in doubt?" his golden eyes slid once again to the cockpit hatch then back to his companion's face. "As you have all but told me."

The tall man glared,tight-lipped, at his companion.

Moll nodded. "Yan is a man of impeccable principle. His actions are guided by the Force, and I assure you that he does consider both the good of your Padawan…. and yourself."

The words were of cold and insufficient comfort, but Qui-Gon bowed nonetheless.

The decks shuddered beneath their feet as the ship dropped back into realspace outside the Tarbool system.

They had arrived at last.


	13. Chapter 13

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 13**

* * *

Jenna Zan Arbor perched upon a burnished stool and scooted herself closer, austere tunics appearing a sickly green in the harsh overhead lighting.

"Tell me something, Jedi," she said, gently tapping the stylus against her chin.

Obi-Wan wearily rolled his head in her direction, frowning as the entire whitewashed room spun slightly with the motion. _Go to the hells,_ he idly thought – but he had a feeling this was not the sort of something she had in mind.

"Midichlorians," the woman continued, abstractedly. "They die when separated from living cells. They die when transferred to cells of a new organism. And now I come to find out that they _die _even if I simply transfuse blood into a new organism. The platelets survive and reproduce, but the midi count decreases at a phenomenal rate. So tell me: why can't they exist outside _you,_ individually?"

He did not want to know by what means she had acquired these abstruse bits of knowledge; nor did he want to know for what ends she had pursued such obscure researches. Nor did he have the energy to ponder the question deeply. "Because they're _mine_," he concluded, flippantly.

"I've come to the same conclusion," the scientist pointed out, now entering notes on the datapad again. "But then why do I encounter the same negative result even using cloned stem cells?" She leaned in, hungrily, and poked the writing implement into his chest. "Hm?"

He rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry I can't share," he drawled. "But I'd be happy to give you a piece of my mind instead."

Zan Arbor ignored the jibe. She chewed on the end of the stylus and peered at him intently, as though the desired secrets might be somehow inscribed in his flesh – as, doubtless they were. From a certain point of view. The Padawan had the sudden and disconcerting impression that she would happily tear him cell from cell to excavate the buried mystery.

"Why," she demanded, sourly, "Can they not be _isolated_ from the particular individual?"

His head hurt too much to play at sophist. On the other hand, if talking could save him from further unpleasant invasion of his personal space, then by all means… "Because they are part of an individual life?" he guessed, closing his eyes as a new wave of vertigo seized him.

"Life is the sum of parts," Zan Arbor snorted. "Everyone knows that."

Really? "The Force is not a composite," he informed her. Basic philosophy – no, a crechelings' commonplace. The woman was shockingly ignorant. "It is the unity underlying disparate manifestations."

His words fell on deaf ears. The woman pointed the mangled plastoid stylus at him "You think there is some sort of juju defining _you_ beyond your genetic template and neural pathways? How quaint."

"We are luminous beings, not this gross matter."

Jenna Zan Arbor laughed in his face. "You look rather ashen, for a _luminous being,"_ she scoffed.

And no wonder, really. She had ordered the droid to take seven – no, _eight_ – vials of blood by now, and he wasn't really sure how many more he had to spare. The world already seemed a pallid echo of its former self, one given to splotchiness and dizzy spells. He felt like an empty husk, and perhaps that meant that he was enough to be a _luminous_ being. Or perhaps it simply meant that he was well on his way to being a corpse. Or perhaps both; after all, there was no opposition, not truly.

Still, he wasn't dead yet. And he found her sense of humor provoking. "And you sound rather intelligent… for an idiot savant," he riposted.

A reedy chuckle, like the hollow music of wooden chimes, answered his remark. Syfo-Dyas appeared behind Zan Arbor, his dark cloak a stark antithesis to the bleached-bone pallor of the room and her crisp garb. "I told you Jenna, you ought to have the droid glue his teeth together."

She snorted disdainfully.

"The transport containing your other equipment is on its way," the ex-Jedi announced. "They should arrive within hours."

"Excellent." The scientist hopped down from her stool and shoved her datapad into a coat pocket. "I'll leave instructions for the droid. I must see to storage arrangements for some of the bulkier items." She bustled out of the room, leaving Obi-Wan alone with Syfo-Dyas.

The thin man made a prowling circuit of the small laboratory space, then stood thoughtfully over the young Jedi. "I am sorry," he said, waving a hand at the bare walls and gleaming appointments. "This is all unnecessary drama, I fear. The woman will never understand the first thing about the Force, no matter how great a swath of bodies she leaves in her wake."

"Then why do you help her?" the Padawan demanded.

Syfo-Dyas raised one brow. "She is useful to me. My purposes are other than hers. Change is coming to the galaxy; those who understand the unfolding of destiny must make use of whatever lesser powers offer themselves as vassals to the higher cause."

"What cause? Why do you care about behavioral conditioning? What does the Trade Federation care? Who were those other people meeting with you?"

Another fluting laugh, cold wind rattling dead leaves, blowing in a lonely cave. "You are a singularly obnoxious and prurient fellow." He withdrew a tiny octahedron from a small pouch at his belt. "This holocron of yours. A beautiful and complex artifact, much like the Republic." He turned the delicate object between his fingers. "And, like the Republic, full of intricate problems, ones difficult to solve."

Obi-Wan frowned over this. For stars' sake, why did the man have to speak in such convoluted riddles? He was nearly as bad as Master-

"Ah!" Sharp pain lanced behind his temples as Syfo-Dyas _crushed_ the crystalline form between his fingers, using the Force to pulverize it into glittering dust.

"There is danger in being too closely united to a corrupt system, as the Order is to the political structure it once served," the Sentinel observed. "And when one has become too decadent to be saved, and the time comes for dissolution, well then…"

"You traitor," Obi-Wan hissed at him, watching the man brush the glittering fragments off his hands. As an afterthought, he noted Master Chopra would _not_ be pleased that his holocron had met such an abrupt and undignified fate.

"I would spend my last hours in some more useful manner than heaping vituperation upon my elders and superiors," Syfo-Dyas advised, heading for the door. "Your impudence will not save you from what lies ahead."

And with this discouraging sentiment, he took his leave.

* * *

"Ah. Tarbool," Dooku sighed, pulling their small craft into a slow glide about the main planet's sickly orb. "A monument to industrious greed."

Qui-Gon's mouth tightened. His former master was more than tolerant of his own blood relatives' extensive inherited wealth; but this indulgent attitude did not extend to _acquired_ riches, especially those garnered by the repulsive Trade Federation. It was an inconsistency in Dooku's rigidly logical worldview which the younger man would never be able to fathom.

"It looks more ghastly than ever," Yarris Moll grunted as they slowly circled the northern hemisphere. Even at this vast height, the manufacturing district bubbles could be easily spotted – festering pustules dotting a barren landscape. The domes and geodesic structures belched toxic fumes into the already pollution laden skies. Visible beyond the hazy curve of Tarbool's horizon were a handful of its numerous moons, each one sold off as a real estate parcel at astronomical rates to the highest bidder, like exclusive high-rise office spaces. Some of the galaxy's most opulent individuals and bloated corporate interests had purchased a moon as private holdings. Here, in Trade Federation space, the Republic ban on private ownership of entire inhabitable worlds did not apply.

They curved upward again, rising toward the cluster of faintly shining satellites.

The Iktotchi Sentinel leaned forward, his curving cranial horns glinting in the dull lights of the console. "Look what we have here," he grunted, pointing at a bright speck near one of the smaller moons. "Someone has just reverted- a supply ship, I would guess."

Dooku's feral smile deepened the lines about his eyes. He pushed their shuttle forward, while Moll shifted seats to the weapons system.

Qu-Gon leaned back, exhaling. Shooting down an unsuspecting vessel was not the Jedi way; but the two Shadows exhibited not an ounce of compunction. Nor did they ask his opinion on the matter.

Soon enough the freighter noticed their presence and began an evasive run. Moll gripped the cannon controls.

"Take out their transponder," Dooku ordered, coolly, accelerating at a heart-stopping rate, the Republic shuttle shuddering beneath them as the Force gathered in a controlled tempest, obedient to the Jedi master's command.

They hurtled toward the heavier, less maneuverable target; Moll fired off three tight shots, clipping the bows of the freighter and leaving their transponder array a sparking mess. The wounded ship lurched and half-rolled, but Dooku was far too fast; coolly anticipating, he swept hard to starboard, bringing the fleeing spacecraft back into cannon range. Moll clipped their aft thrusters, each wing, the shield generator.

"Force them down," the horned Jedi grunted, "Before I have to blast them out of their slow wits."

A sardonic smile tugged one corner of Dooku's mouth upward, but it faded to regal calm again just as quickly. Only a dangerous glitter in his helf-veiled eyes betrayed his intense concentration. The Republic ship slewed about violently, dropped and twisted in a tight and efficient spiral, an elegant maneuver reminiscent of the pilot's saber style.

Qui Gon felt his stomach flip as the grav-regulator lapsed behind the lightning-fast changes of direction, and he found himself thankful that Obi-Wan was not here to experience Dooku's display of skill. The Padawan was a firm believer in _nothing too fancy_ when it came to flying.

The freighter lurched beneath them as they descended into the tattered atmosphere of the nearest moon, bumping and shuddering as pressure pockets buffeted them, blinded by trailing smoke as Moll's warning shots glanced off the shipping vessel's failing shields. They descended, hunters and hunted, toward the rocky plains below.

Moll craned his head over one shoulder, golden eyes glinting. "I assume you have participated in a forcible hijacking before, Master Jinn?"

"I learned from the expert," he grimly replied.

* * *

There was a shift in the Force.

It eddied and stirred, his lazy downward spiral toward oblivion inexplicably reversed, the present –absent Light now running uphill again, tugging at awareness, counseling _defiance _ rather than acceptance. The pendulum swing was dizzying, and he almost rebelled against it….

Almost. But he was Jedi. So he forced his eyes open.

The droid was here again, and it was still poking at him, endlessly jabbing and prodding – more needles and probes and nameless clinical instruments, it didn't matter anymore – but the droid was not the source of the disturbance. It was ignorant of the subtle revelation that had so altered the balance of the unseen.

It could not feel…

_Qui Gon._ Somehow, impossibly, he was coming here.

The droid stabbed something into tender flesh. "Ow!"

The Force surged higher, a swelling tide rising with his pain and irritation, with his renewed hope, with stormy defiance. Dark and light spattered and broke in crashing waves, pounding against him without cease. He could no more channel to control it than stop the droid from –

"Uugh! _No!"_ He fought, twisting away even as cold mechanical appendages sought to-

"Well. We're feisty all of a sudden." Zan Arbor's hazy outline appeared in his line of vision. "What's this? Your last stand?" She leaned in closer, speculatively. "Maybe we need one more dose. I really need you to cooperate once we get started. I think it's going to work this time."

He _tried_ to touch the Force, to grasp any faint ephemera of its power, but it could not be held. He was carried on its seething tide, helpless to direct it. He growled out his frustration, a guttural cry deep in his throat. The Dark rose, a Leviathan coursing in the depths of his blood, and he gasped, horrified to find it so very near, so very powerful.

_No, no,no. Not that. Never that._ He closed his eyes and breathed. Slowly. _Draw in peace, serenity. Release anger, release fear…._

Another aching point of pain, and an icy flood spreading from neck down his spine, the clawing numbness threatening to dull and muffle even the reckless storms of the Force about him, to lull him into utter quiescence.

But Qui Gon was on his way, and that meant _escape._ He fought, because his master was coming and he had to meet him, had to –

The droid sailed clear across the room and slammed into the opposite wall. There was a thrilling crash, glass and plastoid and metal careening together, the musical cacophony of shattered parts, broken equipment.

"Goodness," Zan Arbor hissed. "You can _resist_ now?" Her stylus tapped frantically against the datapad, recording the spectacular feat for posterity. "I'm impressed, but I'm sorry to say that it won't do – this experiment is too important."

The electrocollar snapped into place about his neck again.

"Try that stunt once more," the evil woman warned. "Aversion conditioning is a simple but effective means of behavioral control."

The Force roared in his ears, furious, uncontrolled, foretelling victory and disaster, battle to come, full of rage and grim reckoning. He groaned with the rising currents, adrift and anchorless even as he drowned in its plenitude. Zan Arbor looked on dispassionately, biding her time.

"The first time I tried this new method, the colonization destroyed the subject's optic nerves. We were using the sinal cavities as insertion point.. This time we'll go through the back of the skull; riskier, but ultimately more effective. This biotic agent I've developed binds to the meninges and neural tissues, creating a synaptic override. Much more sophisticated than this sort of thing." She waved the electrocollar control at him. "You should be honored to be the first of Syfo-Dyas' new zombies."

Something rose in his throat, and he choked it down. "What are you talking about?"

She raised her thin brows. "Oh, his Army of the coming apocalypse. I thought all you Jedi would share the same fanatical delusions."

A black mist gathered about the edges of the room. He was dimly aware of more poison seeping in his veins, of the protesting throb of his heart as it labored to keep him alive, of his lungs' wheezing battle to draw in vital fire. Zan Arbor's hands were cold, and the white and sterile room was cold, and deep within the Force an icy nexus was creeping inexorably toward him, an open maw ready to swallow the very Light.

He battled against it, against encroaching weakness, against the Dark. He had to _fight, _ because… because….

If he didn't, if he surrendered the contest, it would be too late for Qui-Gon.

"No," he gritted out, his voice shamefully cracking.

Zan Arbor leaned over him, narrowed eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement. Somewhere, very far away, a voice announced that the courier ship had brought the missing lab equipment. The receding echo of the scientist's eager footfalls faded as quickly as his grasp on blurring, smearing reality.

* * *

"They'll be out if the way in the cargo hold," Yarriss Moll observed, emerging from the back of the stolen cargo ship and dusting off his knotted hands on his cloak. "I've got them bound and gagged. Filthy-mouthed troupe of poltroons that they are."

Dooku fired up the new ship's drives. "Once again, you've overdone it, Moll," he drawled, frowning slightly at the damage report on the console display. "But we shall make it as far as the next moon on sub-lights."

The Iktotchi shrugged off the implicit criticism with the ease of one long accustomed to such. Qui Gon marveled at his equanimity; even now, Dooku's trenchant observations on his own shortcomings could ruffle his composure as nothing else could, except perhaps his current apprentice's occasionally acidic wit.

Moll sat beside him in the rear of the cockpit and strapped in, spreading hands upon his knees. In the cramped space, he had to duck his head slightly to fit beneath the curving bulkheads. "I took the liberty of opening their supply crates," he told Qui-Gon. "They are carrying a great deal of laboratory equipment, which we shall impound and catalogue."

The tall man refrained from asking what _sort_ of things this included. Part of him did not want to know. "What about the Arbor Foundation?" he asked instead.

A blunt and scoffing release of breath. "It lies outside Republic Jurisdiction. We cannot seize it without violating the Neutral Space sanctions."

"Then let us hope Zan Arbor can be apprehended _here,"_ Qui-Gon replied. "The Trade Federation cooperates with extradition procedures."

Yarriss Moll's fierce yellow eyes regarded him steadily. "Her wickedness comes to an end today…one way or another," he promised. His stern face hardened into etched lines. "Leave her to Yan and myself, Master Jinn. You should look to your apprentice." The sentinel lapsed into a heavy silence, his gaze weighted with recent memory, with the faintest suggestion of regret.

Qui-Gon looked away.

And they hurtled onward, racing an unkind destiny, one which exacted a terrible price for every victory and made no promises.


	14. Chapter 14

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 14**

* * *

The stolen freighter was welcomed into the Offworld hangar bay with open arms; a fleet of hover-lifts and cybernetic assistants waited dutifully on deck, ready to disgorge the cargo hold of its coveted contents.

They seemed taken aback at the appearance of three Jedi masters in lieu of the expected pilots; and positively affronted by these strangers' disregard for protocol. The cloaked newcomers simply pushed through the confused deck crew as though shoving aside bothersome reeds in some marshland, making it as far as the interior hangar doors before one of the more highly programmed managerial droids had an epiphany and thrust one accusatory metal digit into the air.

"Intruders!" it declared, setting the gathered company into a frenzy of disapproval. "Activate security patrols!"

Dooku and Moll had their sabers in hand before the observant droid had finished uttering the command; Qui Gon would have sworn that the Iktotchi's harsh features were alleviated by the faint suggestion of a grin, while Dooku's anticipatory delight was evident only in the elegant Makashi salute he executed in the hall's tight confines, and the casual grace with which he prowled forward down the hall.

Moll indicated a lift shaft to the right. "Jinn," he said curtly. "You find the boy; Yan and I will entertain our hosts."

A klaxon wailed overhead, alerting the entire building to their presence. Qui Gon wasted no time in disappearing up the open shaft while the two Shadows continued down the passage, 'sabers thrumming in lethal harmony as the rumble of approaching droids filled the echoing space.

The heavy insulation inside the vertical tunnel did not entirely muffle the sudden cacophony of blaster shots, nor the discordant shriek of plasma blades wreaking havoc among their foes. He smiled grimly and sprang swiftly up the sides of his chosen route and through the opening to the next floor.

He didn't even break stride as he carved his way through the unsuspecting detachment of droids set to gueard the laboratory level.

* * *

The Tarbool facility was a ramshackle hut compared to the monstrous sprawl of the Arbor institute; it required almost no effort to find the right door.

Qui-Gon located the room easily, and stepped over the pile of scrapped security droids, kicking a sparking head to one side. His 'saber still purred with delight in his hand, the emerald plasma blade pulsing steadily. The seal on the door resisted his initial application of the Force; temper flaring, he plunged the blade straight through the metallic panel and carved a molten line through its width, a hot and searing scar, the indelible brand of his displeasure.

He kicked the round opening through to the other side and stormed in. The medical droid ended as slag and spare parts upon the tiled floor. His 'saber screamed louder than the soundless yell of fury welling in his heart, and then hissed back into its hilt, a spitting tongue of lightning retreating into its thundercloud.

"Obi-Wan."

No answer – but the Padawan was still alive, as deathly pale as he was, as weak as his presence might be. And – by the sweet _Force!- _ he looked worse than Tahl had, if that were possible.

Qui-Gon made short work of the restraints and the electro-collar, and then paused, noting every bruise and abrasion, the dark hollows and ashen, sweat-slicked skin. His initial volcanic flow of wrath cooled, deadening into a cold and icy resolution. His hands shook as he once more removed his own cloak, tucking it around Zan Arbors' latest victim. "Padawan."

They would have to traverse several hallways to make it back to the hangar; and security droids might still be roaming the building. He would not be able to effectively defend against possible assault with his arms full of deadweight and gangly apprentice. He laid a hand against the young Jedi's cheek and tried to rouse him, pressing inward against his mind with the Force. "Obi-Wan. Wake up. Listen to me."

A familiar furrow appeared between the Padawan's brows, a sharp line of concentration or pain, as though this command were under the most exacting analytical scrutiny. "…I don't …," came the hoarse and somewhat ambiguous verdict.

"Argument will earn you extra chores, meditation, and training circuits around the Temple perimeter. I suggest you cooperate." The master forced a smile, though it was empty of mirth.

Bloodshot eyes cracked open, squinting at him through fair lashes. "…Master?"

"We don't have time to negotiate," Qui-Gon advised him. "Here." He hauled his apprentice upright into sitting position, eliciting a groan. "Obi-Wan. Stay with me." But his words apparently were doomed to fall on deaf ears, for the young Jedi slumped forward against his chest, unresponsive.

This state of affairs was, at least, an improvement over the bitter mutual resentment they had recently experienced – or so he told himself, with a wry twist of the mouth. "Padawan. Wake up."

But it was no use, and time was running short, in more than one sense. He lifted Obi-Wan in both arms, grunting a bit. At nearly sixteen, the boy was not exactly a light burden. With a pang, the Jedi master recalled the slight ten-year-old he had met at their first introduction so many years ago. That Obi-Wan had been impish and round-faced; this one was paradoxically much stronger and much weaker. He shifted the awkward weight as his student's head lolled against his shoulder. If they encountered any resistance, he would have to drop his ailing apprentice unceremoniously upon the floor to reach his 'saber. But there was little he could do about it now.

He stepped through the glowing-edged makeshift doorway into the bare corridor beyond, and hurried on his way, heart constricted into an explosive knot of cold fury.

And the Force flowed darkly in his wake, waiting upon the moment of retribution, the reckoning to come.

* * *

"…can walk," Obi Wan slurred.

Qui Gon rounded the next corner, every nerve stretched taut with anticipation, the Force restless with danger - not imminent but not far enough away, either.

"I doubt it," he grunted, a corner of his mouth quirking upward. They had just turned into the last corridor- the broad main passage bisecting the building into two symmetrical wings. "But try anyway." This arrangement would at least leave his sword arm free.

"No try," Obi Wan reminded him, almost dragging Qui-Gon down with him as his knees gave way. He struggled up again, leaning heavily on the tall man's left side. "Uh," he panted, with the shadow of a wry grin. "Only do not."

Footfalls sounded, pattering down another intersecting passage ahead, and a flash of white coat disappeared around the far corner through a wide storage bay door.

Qui Gon's heart skipped a beat. Zan Arbor. The evil woman left a mephitic stench in the Force, a palpable ripple of malice.

Obi Wan made a small, nearly inaudible sound – a hissing growl of indrawn breath, a visceral act of revulsion. Every muscle tautened into a rigid expectancy.

"Stay here," the tall man ordered, lowering his apprentice to the polished floor. He pulled the cloak's voluminous folds closed, fingered the dangling braid. "I'll be back shortly."

"No! Master –"

"Stay." He stood, glancing once over his shoulder as he hurried into the storage bay, 'saber in hand. They had come to _stop_ Zan Arbor, and he would not leave without seeing it done.

The roof here was high, fretted with crude durasteel girders, piled with plastoid crates and shipping palettes. Footfalls echoed among the walls of the labyrinth, inviting chase, bouncing and skipping off the ceiling and metallic support beams, a mocking chorus of clowns and buffoons, the Force full of their lilting and cruel laughter. Qui-Gon was not in a mood for their jests; the Force rose hot in his veins, and he swept a hand viciously through the air, felling a high stack of containers, and then another, pulling the neat rows and columns into crashing disarray, the explosive clatter and roar of their destruction punctuated by a woman's shrill scream of rage.

His 'saber flared out of its hilt, and he advanced, a novel and dangerous fire kindling in his blood.

* * *

Obi-Wan won his contest with gravity, standing unsteadily upon braced legs, both hands splayed upon the cool wall. Up. Up. He was standing. The whole building lurched unaccountably, as though it were a ship guided by a bad pilot. He rolled with the motion, as he had been taught, balancing precariously as the world's axis shifted beneath him.

_Go, go, go,_ the Force urged him, flatly contradicting Qui-Gon's mandate to _stay._

It wasn't disobedience, because he would be lucky to take a single wobbling step in the right direction. He tried it, and directly crashed to his knees, the cloak getting tangled about his legs in the process. He panted, steadied himself against the wall again, and pushed back up.

_Danger,_ the Force told him.

"I'm trying," he groused, deciding that the wall was his friend. He staggered forward, trailing one hand along its length, sometimes leaning heavily against it, sometimes bumping into its smooth surface as the floor took an unexpected spin or dive. The edges of his vision swam, until his focus was a blurry tunnel ending at the bay doors through which Qui-Gon had passed a few minutes earlier.

He stumbled across the threshold, grasping at the broad support frame. "Master!"

But his voice was a broken whisper, and the Force shook with deafening thunder, a tempest brewing upon a dark horizon. Qui-Gon descended like a black cloud upon his foe, saber growling low, full of protective rage, bright actinic fury spilling off it in sparking waves as the cold air was ionized about the plasma blade.

The Padawan clung to the door support. "_Master!"_ he bellowed, heart pounding, throat closing as he looked upon the unfolding scene, the Jedi master closing in upon Zan Arbor like a jungle colwar waiting to drop upon its prey.

Qui-Gon advanced, pinning his enemy against the far wall with one outstretched hand, his strides closing the fateful gap with lethal grace, the set of his shoulders and head bespeaking an awful, simmering power. The woman writhed, struggling vainly against the Force grip, her features contorted in a snarl of hatred.

"Noooo!" the young Jedi screamed, as the Dark rose like a tidal wave. "Master, _no!"_

* * *

For one timeless moment, at the teetering apex of destiny, Qui-Gon held evil incarnate in the palm of his hand, the Force flowing volcanic through his veins, the righteous indignation of hundreds, perhaps a thousand, nameless victims blending into his own hot rage, his soundless howl of loss and horror.

The _thing_ called Jenna Zan Arbor, the blank and gasping mask under which the Dark played out its macabre puppet-show, writhed and choked against the wall, an invisible hand clamped about its throat, cutting it off from the pure sweet air it did not deserve to breathe, squeezing its malicious, hateful existence away into nothingness.

And that same molten wrath, that anger of Light, threatened to burn him away in its efflux; for it erupted from some bottomless pit of existence, some place hidden in his soul all these decades - until this moment, when the hard scars of training and discipline had been ripped away by raw uncaring cruelty, leaving that empty wound gaping wide, a place where the Dark bled through, staining his very soul. And he did not care. He only cared to see this _thing _destroyed, and would willingly be destroyed himself in the process.

It was the desperate, clarion-pure call of Light that saved him, pulled him from the brink of that hell into which he would have fallen, if he could but drag Zan Arbor with him.

"Nooooo! Master, _no!"_ that voice cried, bright like a newborn's first wail, weary and broken as a dying man's last moan.

He turned away from the burning shores of his anger, toward that voice, and the Light, and the compassion it commanded. Zan Arbor dropped to the hard floor, her red and splotchy face crumpled into terror-stricken lines, her lab coat and tunics rumpled and disheveled, her hands clawing frantically at walls and deck as she scrambled to her feet, disbelieving.

Qui-Gon's saber disappeared into its hilt. He closed his eyes, his strength draining from him with the Dark to which it had been wedded, his fear and anger and sorrow leached away with his reserves of power, leaving him scoured clean, hollow and empty as his Padawan.

He staggered a little, relieved beyond words, grateful beyond reckoning.

"Obi-Wan," he said, turning toward the young Jedi leaning heavily against the far wall, blue eyes wide with a nameless dread.

"Master!" the Padawan shouted, the Force flaring star-bright with alarm.

Qui Gon spun, 'saber blazing to life an instant too late.

* * *

Syfo-Dyas dropped like a hawkbat from above; veiled and obscured, his presence shielded with that same skill that had once made him such a formidable Sentinel, his attack was unheralded, a sudden lightning storm falling on an open plain.

Qui Gon was fast, and powerful, his green blade humming a ferocious battle anthem as he surged to meet the new threat, deflecting and blocking the unremitting assault, the swift and merciless rain of Makashi strikes that hammered against his lagging defenses. Syfo-Dyas drove forward relentless, lips drawn back in a cold snarl.

Obi Wan stretched out his hand, _reached…strained…_ begged the sluggish, indifferent Force to hear him, to accomplish this one thing. His saber hilt still hung at the former Jedi's belt. Zan Arbor was running, running for the far exit….getting away….

Nothing. Nothing. He took a few halting steps forward, the world spinning madly with his motion.

Qui Gon reversed grip and parried another strike, the two sabers yowling in discordant tones, sparks dancing between the contestants. Zan Arbor disappeared through the far doors, her panicked footfalls echoing in the passage beyond. Syfo-Dyas changed tactics, circled, feinted, lunged and feinted again, made a high counterattack and then came in low, beneath the other man's guard, flicking his blade inward and singing Qui-Gon's wrist. The green 'saber clattered to the decks, expiring.

"No!" Obi-Wan felt the Force rise, a fountain of strength, one bringing his 'saber sailing, as though of its own accord, into his open palm, even as Syfo-Dyas unleashed its torrential power upon his foe, smashing the Jedi master into the wall beyond with a sickening thud.

Qui Gon tumbled to the decks, cloak crumpling about his body. Syfo-Dyas pounced forward, blade singing in a high circle, ready to deliver the death blow; Obi-Wan sprang, with a strength most assuredly not his own, to plant himself firmly between the Shadow and Qui-Gon, his blue blade leaping ecstatic from its hilt, sweeping down, back, across, down – the Makashi defensive kata in which Dooku had drilled him to the point of pain.

"Whelp!" Syfo-Dyas spat out, redoubling his effort.

The Padawan did nothing; the Force did everything. His 'saber seemed to cry out defiance in its clear, sonorous voice, a last song, a final impossible gift. He fought, defending his master's life with his last breath, until sweat blurred his vision to stinging tears and his leaden limbs would no longer obey even the luminous power suffusing them, and he made a fatal slip.

The fallen Jedi knocked the Padawan's blade to one side, leaving his entire front side unguarded, and then flicked his own weapon around and down, trailing a kiss of pure agony from collarbone to navel, the signature Makashi mark of dishonor.

The young Jedi collapsed backward, falling atop Qui Gon, his gasp of pain strangled in his throat, his hands clutching at the Jedi master's limp form even as the Shadow loomed over them both, black-cloaked and maleficent, his 'saber promising them a single, simultaneous death.

The blow never fell.

A green line barred Syfo-Dyas' blade, a bar of pulsing light fending off destruction.

Obi Wan moaned, rolled halfway over, raised astonished eyes to see Yan Dooku meet the former Sentinel's attack with a majestic grace, lethal speed and accuracy driving his opponent backward, his blade carving an endless flowing arc as he closed in, tighter, tighter, faster, faster, bending Syfo-Dyas' own skill against him , weaving a tightening noose, a damning circle of light, until –

"Ahh!" The pain seemed to explode in the Force, everywhere and nowhere; Syfo-Dyas howled with it, staggered back, one hand clutching at his shoulder, where Dooku's blade had passed clean through, leaving a smoldering hole, the scent of burned flesh hot in the ionized air.

And then another flash, a great thunderclap of power, the violent rebound to this wound. A girder high overhead wrenched free of its moorings and fell, plummeting straight down onto the injured Jedi lying below.

Dooku wheeled, one arm extended rigidly, face taut with effort as he seized the hurtling durasteel beam in midair and stopped its descent; Syfo-Dyas leapt for the open roof, the Force churning into a bitter frenzy in his wake; Qui Gon startled awake, throwing a protective arm across Obi Wan as death crashed down headlong upon them; and the massive girder wobbled, wavered and then shifted to one side, dropping with a crushing finality half a meter to the side of its intended targets.

Dooku had saved them, and Syfo-Dyas had escaped.

* * *

The warehouse blurred and spun. Obi-Wan clutched at his burning, throbbing injury with one hand while the other held fast to Qui-Gon's arm, as the Jedi master knelt beside him. The Force warped and shifted, pain and relief and illness and gratitude sliding like diaphanous veils over his mind, one after another. In the confusion, he could hear both Dooku's and Qui-Gon's voices, feel the touch of hands upon his face, upon his wound.

"…Escaped," he protested, urging them to _go,_ to _finish the mission…_ but neither seemed inclined to listen.

"Can you manage?" Dooku's voice inquired, and he struggled to form a coherent thought, a phrase that might explain his current condition -

But the question, it woudl seem, had actually been addressed to Qui Gon. "I'll be fine, master," the familiar voice murmured.

There was a soft scuffling of boots, the whisk of a cloak against the decks, and then a broad and dizzying sweep of motion as he was lifted again, or perhaps dropped? Or was he simply flying? No..._ floating_ away from his pain on a sea of inviting warmth. The last thing he felt was the brush of fingers across his temple, before the currents of that ocean carried him utterly away.


	15. Chapter 15

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 15**

* * *

The hangar bay was eerily silent, scattered droid appendages and clumps of smelted circuitry dotted about the smooth decks, as though artfully arranged in a surreal meditation garden. Qui-Gon's boots sent a stray piece skittering as he made his way toward the far end, Dooku striding a few paces ahead of him.

They were greeted by Yarriss Moll. The Iktitchi Sentinel's mien was sterner than ever, framed by his twin cranial horns – and in his grip struggled Jenna Zan Arbor, hatred simmering in her contorted face. She was utterly dwarfed by the enormous Jedi master; indeed, squirming in his grasp, she seemed reduced to a merely pathetic life form, a worm or slimy thing dragged out of its hole into the light of day against its own will.

Qui-Gon hung back a pace nonetheless, his grip tightening around his limp apprentice.

"I found this trying to slip out a back entrance," Moll growled, his thin mouth tightening into a darkly amused line. "I believe we have what we came for now."

Dooku regarded Zan Arbor contemptuously, but deigned to make no comment.

The Iktotchi master jerked his head in the direction of the hijacked freighter. "I'll secure our prisoner with the others," he told Dooku. "And check this lab for records and datafiles. The courts will desire as much evidence as possible."

"Courts!" Zan Arbor scoffed. "I have friends in very high places. The Republic can _try_ to prosecute me. But Science will triumph over such moralistic quibbles in the end. There are powers in this galaxy that understand what real progress costs."

Dooku looked down his aristocratic nose. "There are indeed," he agreed enigmatically. "But I doubt your patrons are possessed of either true power or understanding."

The woman merely sneered at him in reply, stumbling as Moll dragged her away toward the open boarding ramp. The Sentinel glanced once at Qui-Gon, his golden eyes dropping briefly to the bundle of sprawling limbs and chestnut hair in the tall man's arms before flicking upward with a suggestion of sympathy, or bittersweet envy. And then he turned back to his duty, shoving Zan Arbor up the ramp with a grunting, "Ladies first."

"Come," Dooku sighed. "We shall take this other shuttle back to Coruscant." He too spared a glance at the unconscious Padawan. "Post haste."

* * *

The ship was small but promised great speed. Qui-Gon ducked beneath the low hatchway frame and settled Obi-Wan upon the single passenger bunk while Dooku went forward to the cockpit and expertly maneuvered them out of the docking bay and into atmosphere.

The saber burn was long but not deep, an angry gash across already bruised flesh. The healers might be able to coax the injury into healing without a scar, though 'saber wounds were notorious for leaving a mark, despite the best care and most astounding skill. Qui-Gon unpacked his small medkit and then sighed, touching the feverish skin to either side. Obi-Wan tensed combatively beneath his touch.

"No ..N_ooo!_" a groggy, disoreinted voice croaked.

"Go back to sleep," he ordered, quietly, infusing his voice with the Force's persuasive power.

"Uungh," the Padawan objected, but his protest was as short-lived as the thought. A moment later, his head rolled to one side again, eyes closed.

Bacta and bandages in place, there was little more to be done until they arrived on Coruscant. But the Jedi master stayed for a long stretch of time, guarding against a foe he could neither name nor describe.

* * *

"You need not _brood_ in such a tactless manner," Dooku advised, when Qui Gon finally set foot in the cramped cockpit space. "Your disapproval is manifest."

"I have nothing to complain of," the tall man replied, easing his weary limbs into the copilot's chair. "And I owe you thanks on behalf of both myself and my Padawan."

Yan Dooku raised one shoulder in a gesture of indifferent dismissal. "It was my duty," he assured his former student.

Qui-Gon watched the lazy transmutations of the hyperspace tunnel, the smearing and warping of light, visible on the cooler end of the spectrum as blue and indigo sworls, formless and meandering streamlets.

"Since you are determined to dwell upon your dissastisfaction," the older man drawled, "Perhaps it would be best if we spoke of it now –" His eyes flicked back toward the passenger compartment. "While we have a moment of privacy."

Qui-Gon was no coward. "Very well," he accepted the challenge, swiveling about in his seat. "You manipulated him into accepting this assignment. And you were well aware of the inherent risk."

One of Dooku's brows rose. "There was no manipulation," he corrected, coolly. "Your Padawan is an accomplished rhetorician himself – a man of consummate subtlety, I might add – unlike his mentor."

The insult passed unremarked. "With respect, your position of authority does not entitle you to endanger the Order's younger generation at will," Qui-Gon growled. "Council approval notwithstanding, it was cruel and callous to send a Padawn into such grave peril."

"None of us is exempt from danger, Qui-Gon," Dooku reminded him, with a hint of melancholy. His glittering gaze seemed to penetrate past the viewport, into the formless netherworld of hyperspace and beyond, as though he would pierce the veil between existence and its limitless origin. "We come to serve."

The tall man pressed his lips together, not wishing to hear this platitude, this Temple commonplace.

"We are _sent_ to serve. We _are_ service," Dooku added, vehemence edging his voice with a rare passion. "That and that alone matters. The individual… is nothing."

There was a chilling purity to Dooku's vision, a pristine and merciless truth. Qui-Gon sought for the Living Force, for the font of compassion that bubbled secretly in the nexus of each and every breathing, living thing, the center from which the universe unfolded, in millions and trillions of individuals. "On the contrary," he asserted. "Individuals are everything. The only thing."

His companion's mouth curved upward in a wistful smile. "Ah," he sighed. "The perennial debate. Your Padawan, by the way, does not necessarily share your perspective. He is, beyond a talented swordsman, a remarkable philosopher. But perhaps you do not encourage such avocations."

Qui-Gon did not rise to this bait, either. Obi-Wan might enjoy the rough and tumble of dialectical exchange; but he was much older, wiser, and currently in no mood for such convoluted games. "I would rather you kept away from him in the future," he said, flatly.

"I am aware of that," Dooku smoothly replied. His eyes twinkled with the acerbic mirth once so familiar, now so blessedly distant from everyday life.

Qui-Gon stiffened. "I respectfully request that you keep away from him in the future," he amended. The cockpit was far, far too small to contain them both.

The elder master's amusement only rippled wider in the Force, a smug impervious tolerance. ""As you wish, of course," Dooku purred. "But do rest assured, Qui Gon, that I am impressed with the boy – should anything untoward happen to you in the future, I would be honored to complete his training."

The promise was one made between great friends, a gift and comfort in which many a master might have rejoiced. Qui-Gon's breath stopped in his chest, a weight squeezing at his lungs.

"There would of course be no difficulty gaining the Council's approval," Dooku continued, his first strike followed by another. He smiled, accenting this declaration of his rank and privilege, of Qui-Gon's scandalous maverick status, of the unspoken _power_ and _influence_ he wielded. "And it would be my pleasure… whatever your personal feelings toward me."

"I am honored, my master," Qui-Gon choked out, solemnly vowing in that moment that _nothing _untoward should happen to him at any point in the future, until Obi-Wan was well and safely Knighted, and he himself a doddering old fool wandering the Temple corridors.

* * *

They managed to make a transmission to Coruscant between legs of their hyperspace route.

"So Moll has Zan Arbor in custody as we speak," Mace Windu frowned. "We will alert the high security prison here; I do not think it would be advisable to incarcerate her in a low level facility."

"The Chancellor's approval we will need," Yoda grunted, his blue hologram shimmering with static interference. "Speak to him myself, I shall."

"Excellent." Dooku was in his element, having delivered the report with flawless composure. "As for Syfo-Dyas, our paths shall cross again. I am certain of it."

Mace nodded gravely, dark eyes flashing. "The Council has implicit faith in you," he assured the elder Jedi.

Dooku received this praise with equanimity.

"She did not seem intimidated by the prospect of a trail," Qui Gon interjected. "She may have corrupt contacts in the court system."

Mace Windu's flickering effigy leaned back, steepling its fingers sardonically. "There are no other kind of contacts in the court system, " he asserted. "But that is outside our control. We have done what we can to promote justice."

It was an unsatisfying answer, and they all knew it.

"What of the other interests involved in the Arbor Foundation meeting?" Ki Adi Mundi inquired. "Should we launch an investigation of them as well? If there is a conspiracy brewing on such a widespread magnitude, it behooves us to know all we can of it."

Dooku nodded, once. "It should be made a priority. The Sentinels will see to it."

Yoda's tiny figure thrust its gimer stick at the holocamera. "Qui-Gon," he grunted. "Require healers' care, will your Padawan?"

"Yes," he replied, heavily. "Immediately upon our arrival."

The ancient Jedi's ears drooped as he folded his gnarled hands about the stick's haft, but he said nothing more.

And there seemed nothing more to be said. After the obligatory exchange of farewells, they ended the transmission in a dull snap of blue light.

* * *

The turbulence of their last hyperspace jump, or perhaps simply the instinctual realization that they were flying, roused the young Jedi after hours of trance-like sleep. Qui-Gon felt the renewed wakefulness and slipped into the passenger compartment to check on its occupant, relieved to make an escape from his former master's company. Obi-Wan muttered some inarticulate complaint about the piloting and nearly rolled off the bunk before he was fully awake. Qui-Gon caught him halfway over the side and patiently waited until his Padawan's eyes finally focused on his face.

"Here. Let me see." The Jedi master sat gingerly on the edge of the shuttle's inset bunk. He gently tugged the cloak's folds away from Obi-Wan. "I need to check that burn again – it needs more bacta."

Fingers wrapped around his wrist, preventing further progress. "No," Obi-Wan said.

"Padawan." The Jedi master extricated his hand from his apprentice's alarmingly feeble grip and firmly pulled aside the bandaging. Obi-Wan flinched violently when he touched the edge of the wound.

A tremor of undiluted fear washed across their bond. Qui-Gon looked up sharply.

"I'm sorry, master." The Padawan made an effort to pull the cloak over his chest and belly again, but Qui-Gon stopped him, pushing his hands aside and puncturing the bacta container.

"That's enough," he ordered. "Let me help you."

"_No,"_ the young Jedi repeated, now trying unsuccessfully to sit up. A flare of anger lit the Force between them, mixing uneasily with dread and exhaustion. He squirmed away, yanking the cloak back over his exposed skin, teeth gritted. "Don't touch it! Don't touch me! Leave me alone!"

Comprehension dawned. "Oh, Padawan." Qui-Gon brushed one hand through sweat-bristled hair. The simple gesture seemed to touch a nerve; the young Jedi hissed as he drew back further, the Force turgid with unreleased emotion, confused images and impressions.

"What did that evil witch do to you?" the Jedi master muttered, seizing the boy's shaking shoulders. "Obi-Wan, you must accept help. I will not hurt you."

Obi-Wan made a curt gesture with one hand, and the bacta container flew across the cabin. "I'm fine! I don't want help! I- I – _no more!"_

The Jedi master tightened his precautionary hold. "Look at me. You are injured, and ill – you've been drugged and abused. Do you understand me?"

But his Padawan merely snarled and tried to writhe out of his grip, spurting anger erupting in the Force, a magmaic flow of long-suppressed horror and revulsion. "I don't want help! I'm _fine! Leave me alone!"_ he hollered, achieving an impressive and pain-wracked volume. He struck out savagely, and found his wrists caught in an iron grip. He twisted, attempting to shove Qui-Gon away with one knee. The tall man pinned his leg down, too.

"Stop it!" the Jedi master commanded, appalled at this unfamiliar, shocking spectacle, at the sight of his ironic and reserved apprentice in the clutches of a tantrum, a paroxysm of emotion. "Obi-Wan!"

It would have been a wrestling match had the Padawan not been so weak. It was over in thirty seconds, the younger contestant reduced to panting exhaustion, chest heaving and muscles trembling. "Master," he said, miserably. "I'm… I'm not not fine, I don't – I – she –"

"Hush."

"She had a droid. They did – she made it – "

"Shh. We'll speak about it later. Relax. Be at peace now."

"…_I hate her!"_

"No; no, you don't. You only hate what she did, Padawan. If you hated her, if you truly hated her, then you would not have called for me to spare her."

Obi Wan took a deep breath, still fighting for control. "That was .. for you," he said, looking away. "Not her."

"Still," the Jedi master insisted. "Had you harbored true hatred, you would surely have been caught up in mine. I owe you much more than my life, young one. It was you who saved me today – with your compassion."

The young Jedi squeezed his eyes shut, curling inward a trifle. "But you said – you said-"

"Look at me." He waited until Obi-Wan obeyed, looking up into his face with a wary exhaustion. "What I said to you – I was wrong. I failed you then, and I accused you falsely. You do not lack compassion, Padawan. So far from it. I beg your forgiveness."

His apprentice blinked several times, clearly at a loss. Qui-Goon waited patiently, understanding that they had passed a milestone, a threshold past which there was no returning. He bowed his head and waited the verdict, the judgment upon his mistake. The partnership was right when the student taught the master; but this did not mean that such a reversal was welcome, or would cause no pain, sow no confusion.

He waited for condemnation, but none came. Instead, fingers closed about his wrist again. "I'm sorry, too," the Padawan offered in return.

They were trembling on the verge of a precipice now, one undefined within the bounds of the Code, a wild region of things better left unsaid. Qui-Gon turned the soft end of the learner's braid between his fingers, feeling the tight weaving of its strands, the fateful skein of teacher, student, the Force, inseparably bound by duty and devotion, by solemn oath and subtle, unspoken consent. There was tradition, and then there was meaning; there was _attachment, _ and then there was.. this.

Humor had pulled them back from so many dark abysses; it would have to save them from this more awful one of light. "I'll take that as a full confession," the Jedi master teased, heart in his throat.

"Extenuating circumstances," Obi-Wan quipped, automatically, smiling despite himself. He released a careful breath, eyes sliding sideways. His chest spasmed.

_Don't say it,_ Qui Gon begged, the thought translating across their bond, rippling faintly in the Force. He too, looked away.

Some of the combative fire ebbed away, to be replaced by dull exhaustion, hollow aching need. Obi-Wan kept his jaw clamped shut, still stubbornly clutching the rumpled cloak's folds over his injury. But he had always loved truth, and so – in the end - he had to say it. But he used a different word, one less damning but more barbed with present pain, a flail of regret lashing at both their hearts.

"…Tahl," he hiccupped, encompassing in that name a world of forbidden meanings.

And with that, they toppled over the edge together, falling headlong into an abyss neither of passion nor compassion, neither attachment nor serenity. And the Force gathered softly to receive that which was poured out for the sake of this nameless principality, to gather back to itself the tears welling from the bottomless depths of two souls, released into the solitary Light.

The ship bucked gently as they reverted into open space high above Coruscants' northern hemisphere, but it was doubtful whether either of them noticed.


	16. Chapter 16

**Lineage V**

* * *

**Chapter 16**

* * *

"Oh, ho ho," Senior healer Ben To Li chuckled. "If looks could kill." He clasped his own arms across his chest and scowled ferociously, mirroring his patient's posture and expression.

Obi-Wan's beetled further together. "I _did_ refuse medical care," he asserted. "I told the droid, _and_ Bant. And three other people."

The Temple's most experienced healer made a piffling noise and advanced, relentless. "Yes, but you see, my young friend, you are not a senior Padawan and therefore not entitled to complete voluntary disposition of such matters. In short, you are not old enough to tell me where to get off, and therefore at my sole mercy. What do you think of that?"

"I think it's a reeking heap of pizzmah-chizzk, master. With all due respect."

Master Li's eyes narrowed. "Perhaps when I'm done with our other business, I should wash your mouth out as well?"

Obi-Wan met this suggestion with a cold shoulder.

BenTo drew his stool close to the edge of the exam table and gently touched the young Jedi's shoulder, eliciting a visible flinch.

"I said _no!"_ his patient hissed.

"I see," the healer muttered. "You are _afraid_ to receive medical care."

That had the Padawan struggling unsuccessfully to sit, a flush spreading over both cheeks. "That is not the reason," he insisted. "I simply _refused."_

"Hmm." Ben To stroked his beard dubiously. "Prove it, then."

"What? I'm _leaving,"_ Obi Wan announced, making a determined effort to slide his feet down to the floor.

The healer easily thwarted him. "Bant is waiting outside this door," he advised in a low voice. "And she will be terribly mortified when you prance into the outer corridor in nothing but that gown."

"Then I shall _disrobe_ and spare her the pain," Obi-Wan threatened. "And anyone else who doesn't like it can kiss my-" he stopped abruptly, mouth popping open in astonishment, color rising even higher in his face. "…Oh."

"I thought I heard a familiar voice behaving in a _most_ unbecoming manner," Tahl Uvain chided, appearing in the doorframe. Her golden eyes were dull and sightless, but the Force burned steadily about her, radiant and piercing as her wit. "Obi-Wan, why are you shaming yourself and your master in such a fashion?"

The question was clearly not intended to be answered, and it apparently snuffed the vitriolic fire in one go, for the Padawan made no reply but a meek, "I'm sorry, master."

She moved forward, graceful as ever, needing only the Force to guide her steps, and perched upon the edge of the table beside him, laying one hand over his. "Qui-Gon told me what happened," she murmured, caressing his fingers. "I'm sorry."

"I'm fine," he insisted.

"You need to let Ben To care for you," Tahl ordered. "I don't wish to hear any more nonsense. Fear must be faced."

The young Jedi squirmed a little, but did not contradict her bald-faced statement.

"That's better," Tahl declared, smiling. Her eyes wandered aimlessly over the far wall, but her free hand reached for BenTo's arm. "I'll stay, if it might help," she offered.

The healer harrumphed his consent, as Tahl spread her hands palm to palm with Obi-Wan, a wordless encouragement and comfort. She stayed, and Ben To set to work with great gentleness, and there were no more stubborn edicts proclaimed nor stern reprimands issued.

* * *

"He's asleep, Qui – and you should be, too. It's long past midnight."

The tall man quirked a rueful smile. "Says one who is wide awake herself." They made a slow circuit of the indoor garden at the center of the Healing ward, the tiny sanctuary of green boughs and flowing water, pretending that they wandered some wider path.

"I intend to live every moment left to me," Tahl replied, steadily. "Rest can wait until the Force calls me home."

Qui-Gon fell silent.

She stopped him, leaning heavily upon his arm. "Mealncholy does not suit you," she chastised him. "Obi-Wan wears it much better. Leave the brooding to natural talent."

He closed his eyes, his free hand curling about his saber's hilt. The crystal chimed faintly within the Force, clear and true. "I cannot bear the thought of you … dying… slowly over any number of years," he confessed. "My heart is heavy with it."

Tahl Uvain's perfect lips pressed together in disgust. "I'm not dying slowly, as you put it.. I'm _living_ another few years in defiance of fate. You should approve. It's more in your style than mine.":

The words were a bracing slap. Qui-Gon looked at her anew, marveling at what the Force had here wrought. "I am not worthy of you," he said, at last.

"True," Tahl decided, pushing forward again. "And you can drop that mournful tone. You make me glad I'll never again see you with my eyes."

He breathed out the pain of this last riposte and trailed after her, as she wandered the narrow pathway with measured and dignified stride, the Force already burning steadily about her, a funeral pyre ablaze with rare Light.

They exchanged no further words.

* * *

"Master?"

Qui Gon roused himself from his introspective vigil. "I thought you were asleep."

Obi-Wan's brows rose in amusement. "I was _thinking_, master. You were the one sleeping."

The tall man smiled, the welcome insouciance lightening the burdens weighing invisibly against his chest. "You must admit you are not the most stimulating company at present, Obi-Wan."

His apprentice brushed the teasing remark aside, determined to press forward with his inquiry. "Why is it that midichlorians cannot be isolated from their host?"

Qui-Gon leaned back, surprised. "I have no idea. Does it matter?"

"It mattered to Zan Arbor," Obi-Wan frowned. "She was trying to _transfer_ them from one organism to another – to induce Force-sensitivity, I suspect. But it didn't work."

The Jedi master exhaled slowly. "The Force is not a tool to be manipulated in such a manner," he mused. "And her first mistake was to suppose that the midichlorians are the cause of Force- awareness. They are the means, the conduits, not the _essence_ of one's connection. She seems to be a very obtuse materialist, for a woman so allegedly brilliant."

The Padawan idly swept one hand through the air, knocking over a row of instruments and containers on the far wall. His eyes twinkled. "I can feel it again – I mean I can use it. I really am getting better."

Qui-Gon righted a few of the toppled objects with a wave of his own hand. "You are getting stronger," he corrected. "Better is another matter entirely. Your moral character seems to be backsliding into childish mischief."

His Padawan promptly sent the restored items crashing to the floor again, without batting an eyelash or betraying a single flicker of emotion.

"Brat," Qui-Gon muttered. The Force warmed between them. He summoned a small holobook form among the scattered casualties. "What's this?"

"Oh. Master Uvain has been making me read to her. She enjoys poetry. Modern free verse," the young Jedi added, with a hint of distaste. "So uncivilized."

Qui-Gon perused the volume's contents. "Oh? Doesn't she have an autoreader?"

Obi-Wan shrugged. "She says it has a horrid vocabulator. She prefers my voice, apparently."

"I see." The Jedi master pocketed the tiny holobook. "It has grown to have a soporific tenor; I can imagine you easily lulling some unfortunate future Padawan into slumber with your lectures."

"It will be an honor to pass on your legacy, master."

Qui-Gon chuckled, very softly. "Good night, my wayward brat. Continue to grow stronger, and Ben To might release you soon – then we can get back to work on making you _better."_

Obi-Wan's eyes widened innocently. "But who will teach me _that?"_ he wondered aloud, sprawling back against the copious pillows with a singularly languid impertinence

"Don't tempt me," his mentor warned, wagging one finger at his Padawan before exiting into the passage beyond.

Somehow, he realized, the future no longer seemed so rigidly circumscribed by grief .

* * *

"Tahl. What are you doing here?"

She arched one eyebrow at him. "I'm a free woman. Well, within bounds. I've been restricted to the Temple perimeter, for the remainder of my natural life." Tahl paused, mouth quirking with black humor. "A condition they will live to regret, upon my oath."

Qui-Gon stepped aside, to allow her entry. She was not free; death's chains were already indelibly bound to her flesh. And yet she was, her luminous spirit soaring away already, casting off its earthly shackles.

"I don't need saving," she reminded him, tartly. "Stop moping."

"Forgive me," he said, following her across his quarters and onto the balcony. A carbon laden breeze lifted the hems of their cloaks, played among loose strands of hair. The city's lights cast a faint and motley radiance upon Tahl's uplifted face.

"You don't deserve this view, either," she told him, sightless eyes gazing emptily over the bustle of Coruscant's endless cosmopolis. Her hands rested lightly upon the railing. "None of us do; none of us deserve the Force's blessing. And yet we are so gifted."

He moved to stand beside her. "A gift is merited after its bestowal," he replied. "We must strive to be worthy of that which is granted into our keeping."

Tahl smiled, a radiance which shamed the gaudy neon finery of the city below. "I never thought to hear you quote traditional wisdom at me, Qui-Gon."

"You have not yet heard my _interpretation,"_ he reminded her.

The warm evening breeze drew close about them, expectant.

"I would know this _interpretation _of yours_, _Master Jinn," she said, at last.

And the high white walls of the Temple were silent witnesses to the bestowal of a mutual gift, one undeserved but granted without reserve; and death itself withdrew for a short space of time, in reverence for life's bittersweet, boundless defiance of fate.

* * *

"Master Dooku!" With an effort, Obi-Wan hauled himself upright in bed, hoping that his appearance was not _too _lacking in dignity. He half-heartedly attempted to flatten his hair with one hand – an effort doomed to failure.

The Sentinel raised silver brows at him. "I thought I might find you here," he murmured, his bright eyes flitting about the pale walls of the room in the healers' ward. "You have a certain affinity for this place, I have observed."

The Padawan quashed the urge to make a face, settling for a tiny shrug. "I think it may be the other way around."

Dooku's mouth twitched. "Hm. I find myself called away from Coruscant, possibly for several months. I wished to express my gratitude for your role in this last mission. Your performance was more than satisfactory."

The young Jedi rubbed absently at the healing scar along his sternum, and nodded once.

"As I have said before, you would make an excellent Shadow. An exceptional one, indeed."

"I am content to follow the path on which the Force has set me, Master Dooku," Obi-Wan replied, cautiously. "But I thank you for your attention and words of confidence."

The older man smiled, ironically. "A gracious dismissal."

"I would be honored to spar with you again, master – when you return?."

But Yan Dooku held up a restraining hand. "Alas, I think our study of Makashi must be temporarily suspended," he said, offering no explanation for this sudden withdrawal of his favor.

Obi-Wan bowed his head, startled by his own surge of disappointment. "Of course, master – as you wish. I am grateful for what you have taught me already."

Dooku made him a formal bow – a mark of respect, of equality, even – and withdrew, leaving the Padawan in a state of blank confusion, a condition in which he remained for nearly an hour, until Tahl reappeared with a pile of new holobooks and neatly distracted him from brooding.

* * *

"Master Li is going to release me this evening."

Qui Gon tilted his head to one side, squinting at his inverted Padawan. Obi-Wan's balance was not perfect; he wobbled slightly upon his one arm, feet pointing toward the ceiling, bland white sleep pants crumpling comically about his knees. But he did not fall, and that was something.

"I'll be sure to relish my last hours of peace, then," the Jedi master quipped.

His apprentice wavered, and abruptly dropped his other hand to the floor, bracing himself with two arms. His spine straightened and steadied. He exhaled slowly. "Blast it."

"You cannot expect to be entirely recovered at once," Qui-Gon reminded him. "A release from the healers' does not constitute permission to recklessly push your limits. In fact, I think it would be wise to keep you confined to quarters for a few more days, under my watchful eye."

"I shall enjoy my last hours of peace, then," the Padawan promptly responded.

The tall man subtly flicked one finger, sending the impudent wretch toppling over. Obi-Wan managed to flip in midair and land on his feet, casting an accusatory glance at his teacher.

"You are a cruel and whimsical tyrant, master."

Qui-Gon feigned ignorance. "I? I did nothing."

"From a certain point of view," the Padawan snorted, sitting upon the edge of the narrow cot. His eyes dropped and then rose again, silently requesting permission to broach some difficult topic.

"What is it?" Qui-Gon slid the door shut behind them.

Obi Wan's gaze slid sideways. He scowled. "I regret some of my words to you before," he said, carefully, "…about attachment." He looked the older man full in the face before glancing away again, to frown at the polished floor. "But… I do not understand. About – well. I don't understand."

The weight pressing upon Qui-Gons; chest returned in full measure for a moment, But there was too much at stake, too much to be lost by prevarication. He stepped across the space and sat beside his Padawan.

"I do not understand myself, entirely," he said simply.

The young Jedi turned to him, alarm flaring in the Force between them.

"Obi-Wan. What does _Padawan_ mean? Literally?"

A short hesitance. "Path-seeker," came the dutiful reply.

"We are all path-seekers, young one. I am ahead of you on the path – that is all. I do not have all the answers. But when I have attained understanding, I will share that wisdom with you. I give you my word."

It was no answer at all; and yet it settled between them with a feather-light grace, an easing of tension like the morning light breaking through murky cloudbanks.

Obi-Wan dipped his head. "Oh. Yes, master."

QuiGon raised a hand to tug on his apprentice's braid, and was rewarded with a tiny, fleeting smile.

They would move forward, and seek their path together. That was all that was required, in the end – and it was more than enough for the time being.

* * *

"Just one quick detour, Bant. It won't take long."

Bant Eerin was a woman of unyielding principle, and she was all but immune to rhetorical suasion. "What part of _no_ do you not understand?" she demanded, hands splayed upon her hips.

"The whole thing?" Obi-Wan abandoned his initial attempt and resorted to aggressive negotiations, deploying his most winning smile.

The Mon Cal melted. "Fine!" she snorted, throwing her hands in the air. "But only _one. _You stubborn chosski."

Her friend took the lead, determinedly wending his way through the Temple's sprawling halls and corridors, all the way to a small office situated in one of the classroom wings. "I'll just be a moment," he promised. "It's important."

Master Chopra slid the door open with a short wave of his hand. His three eyes perked up at the sight of his visitor. "Why, Padawan Kenobi!" the gentle Graan exclaimed. "Rumor had it that you were quite ill. It is good to see you looking so hale and hearty, upon my doorstep. Come in, come in."

Obi-Wan allowed the elderly mathematician to usher him in.

"Now," Master Chopra prattled on merrily. "I suppose you've come to tell me what wisdom lies at the heart of my holocron. Did you manage to discover all its secrets, eh?"

"Erm," the young Jedi answered. "To be quite honest, master, the holocron was destroyed. Crushed to smithereens, in point of fact."

Master Chopra was manifestly not pleased. "I am not pleased," he said.

"I'm truly sorry, master."

But the elderly Jedi merely chuckled and waved a hand at him. "Pshaw. It was but a thing, after all. And we must be grateful that it was not _you_ who were, ah, subjected to such an unhappy fate. Hm?"

"Yes, master."

"Do tell me that you gained some insight from my little bauble before it was crushed."

Obi-Wan gathered his thoughts. "It was illumining," he decided. "But I'm afraid I still don't quite grasp the niceties of interstitial matrix integration. I don't think I ever shall."

Master Chopra shook his head, setting his three eyestalks to waving. "Oh dear," he sighed. "I think we must admit that you are simply not cut out to be a theoretical mathematician. Perhaps it _would_ be wiser for you to simply abandon ship at Sullust,so to speak."

"Perhaps so," the Padawan wryly agreed.

The Graan Jedi tapped fingers against his seldom-employed saber hilt. "Still," he mused. "You _do_ seem to have a penchant for beating the odds. That bespeaks a certain degree of mathematical talent, does it not?"

"From a certain point of view, I suppose," Obi-Wan warily agreed.

Master Chopra nodded and folded his gnarled hands together. "It's settled then," he chuffed. "I shall record that you have passed the astronavigation course, thus sparing both of us any further suffering. There is always more than one way to demonstrate competency. Yours is as good as any, and better than some."

Obi-Wan bowed deeply, supremely grateful for the reprieve.

"Now off you go, before I meditate upon the acute improbability of my resolution and change my mind."

The Padawan didn't need further warning. He withdrew with another respectful bow, and a considerably lighter heart.

* * *

"I don't mean to sound greedy, but are you going to finish that?" Reeft gazed plaintively at his friend, deepset eyes lingering suggestively on the small unfinished portion upon the other Padawan's plate.

Obi-Wan's brows rose. "Yes," he answered, flatly. "I am."

"Reeft!" This shocked admonishment was delivered by Bant Eerin, her globular Mon Cal eyes narrowing in disapproval. "He's trying to regain his strength! He _needs_ his food."

"You see?" the subject of this proclamation drawled. "Healers' orders. I _am_ sorry, Reeft." With a slow-spreading grin, he made a deliberate show of demolishing the remaining morsels, setting down his utensil with a smug exactitude.

The Dresssalian Padawan's melancholy features rumpled further. "You would mock a starving man?"

Bant sighed and shoved her own half-finished dinner across the table, where it was promptly put to good use by the perpetually ravenous Reeft.

"You see, Obi," he said around a generous mouthful, "Bant is _compassionate_.; I don't know what she sees in you as a friend."

The other young Jedi smirked. "Nor do I; but it is clear that she has a fatal weakness for _pathetic life forms,_ Reeft."

Bant slapped her webbed hands down upon the tabletop. "That's it – if you gentlemen are done, I do need to get back to the healers' ward."

"Don't let us stop you," Obi-Wan replied, holding out a hand gallantly in the direction of the exit. "It has been a pleasure."

Her round silver eyes narrowed. "I intend to execute Master Li's orders to the letter. And that means seeing that you proceed from _here_ directly back to quarters. No more detours, and no loitering."

Reeft caught his companion's eye. "I thought they released you?"

"It's a conditional release," the Mon Cal Padawan explained curtly. "Ready?'

Obi-Wan stood, bowing to Reeft and muttering something about inhumane terms of treaty and coercive negotiating tactics under his breath. Both his friends ignored the grumbling protests.

"Good night," Reeft cheerfully wished him. "I would accompany you, but…" He ambled away toward the serving area, empty tray in hands.

"Come on, then." Bant brusquely ordered, and led the way out, her unwilling charge striding vexedly beside her. "I'm sure Master Jinn is eager to welcome his favorite stray back home."

* * *

Bant Eerin delivered the aforesaid stray directly to the master's doorstep, and discreetly took her leave.

No sooner had the door slid open than the scent of spicy djo wafted, robust and glorious, into the corridor.

"Master!" the young Jedi exclaimed, his delight at escaping the healers' rivaled only by the anticipation of a second dinner.

Qui-Gon shepherded him into the common room with a hand on his shoulder. "I was under the impression you had already eaten."

"When would that pose an obstacle?" Tahl Uvain asked. "Come sit, Padawan. You can have thirds and fourths, too. I am in a generous mood."

Obi-Wan gladly folded himself down at the low table, across from her. "Have I missed anything else?" he enquired, as Tahl heaped an indisputably generous portion into a shallow bowl.

Tahls' mouth curved upward at the corners. "You've missed Master Jinn's poetry recitation. But I doubt he'll give an encore, so it's your loss."

"He doesn't approve of free verse, anyway," the Jedi master informed her. "And he has been known to nod off during edifying speeches."

"Once! And the Parthusi minister carried on for _three_ standard hours. That doesn't count," the Padawan objected, digging in to his favorite dish with evident delight.

"Three hours," Tahl murmured. "You should have excused yourself to the 'fresher and never returned."

"Master did that," Obi-Wan grumbled. "I was the one stuck listening to the minister's speech on Parthisian cultural heritage." He laid his utensil down. "For three _hours,_ master. Even if I did, ah, snooze through the last bits."

Qui Gon merely smiled paternalistically. "A fine training exercise for you. Next time, you will follow my example and beat a dignified retreat."

His student chose to refrain from making any answer, applying himself instead to the food. Tahl gazed fondly at the Padawan, her blind eyes perhaps seeing what was only obscured and veiled by visible appearances; and Qui-Gon looked upon the two of them, and the simple, sheltering roof above them all, and rested in the moment.

Above that roof the endless stars burned onward; and beyond that circle of light gathered here in amity, the future darkly beckoned; but for now, in this delicate present, the Force shone clearly, a vestal fire kindling on its mortal hearth. And all was well.

FINIS


End file.
